


Chara

by BnB (The_Third_Time)



Series: Where We Belong [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Omega, Angst, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Minor Character Death, Omega Verse, Omegaverse, alpha!Kassandra, omega!Daphnae
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2019-02-08
Packaged: 2019-09-12 05:57:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 37,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16867402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Third_Time/pseuds/BnB
Summary: When Daphnae and Kassandra meet again, there’s more at stake than Artemis and tradition.An omegaverse AU of Legacy of the First Blade.





	1. Hunted

**Author's Note:**

> Right, so, OMEGAVERSE, in case that was missed in the summary and the tags. Unlike my usual sort of omegaverse, this is a more the traditional route, so I’m posting this fic under a different pseud to avoid confusion.
> 
> Anyway, I was actually going to plot out a retelling of Odyssey as omegaverse, but Ubisoft went and pulled that not-at-all subtle forced ‘romance’ and this is my knee-jerk response to the bullshit I just played through. At least the DLC gave me a good reason for Daphnae not to kill Kassandra, so it wasn’t all bad, I guess.
> 
> Spoilers for the DLC, obviously, but there’s not much here yet. Also, I tagged violence and there are very minor character deaths up ahead. I don’t think the violence is going to be constant but it’s tagged to be safe.

No warning came. No howls from their wolves nor a signal from their pathfinders. It was suddenly fire, screams, and the blood of her sisters running like a shallow pool under her feet.

Daphnae, barely awake, scrambled out of her hut and sunk her sword into the side a man who was about to finish off one her huntresses. The man’s armor was thick, well-made and expensive, but with her strength, she forced the blade through. Over his shoulder, the sight of Amalthea, clutching her throat and choking on her blood, sent her own boiling with rage. With a roar, she plunged a dagger in his spine and twisted it, and then tossed the man’s writhing body aside to go to her dying sister.

Around them, their village, their home, continued to burn, as men, like the one she had taken out, put Daughters and their beasts to death. The sound of the noble beasts giving their lives for the Daughters, their dying whimpers mingling with the crackle of the flames, and the Daughters, in turn, losing their lives, fighting to the end like the warriors Daphnae taught them to be, it made her let loose a loud, sorrowful howl to the gods.

“I will kill them all,” she vowed to Amalthea, but as she sought to end her huntress’ suffering and give her a quicker trip to the underworld, Amalthea stopped her, somehow finding the strength to reach for her arm. “What? What is it?”

Amalthea, unable to speak, cast her eyes to the hut Daphnae had been sleeping in, and then back at her, and Daphnae felt cold dread grip her bones.

“Where is she?!” she heard one of the men bellow in the distance.

_They’re here for me,_ she realized as her brave huntress finally succumbed to her wounds, dying in her arms. _For what I care most about in the world._

Murmuring a prayer to Artemis for her fallen sister, Daphnae stood to retrieve her weapons from the man who still lived. Persian, she could tell now that she got a good look of his armor. She stomped on his on face, the mask splitting open from the force of it, and with a snarl, she ripped her sword and dagger free, the man’s cry muffled under her foot.

Daphnae joined what few of her sisters remained, and while they did her proud, their brute strength and ferocity could only do so much against the invaders. She and her sisters were trained to hunt and survive in the wilds. These Persians were trained to kill, and they had come for that which she held most dear.

One by one, her sisters fell, and a piece of her heart was lost with them. Ailo. Tasoula. Marpe. Iphito. Nausikaa. Erato. One after the other, until only she was left.

It was the hardest thing to do to turn around and run, when her pride and loyalty told her that she should take a last stand, that she should die with her sisters, but her instincts drove her, sending her running from the Persians and towards her hut. She would protect with her last breath what her sisters died for, what was now the only thing that kept her whole.

_They won’t have it. They won’t have her._

“Mater?”

Daphnae nearly stopped breathing when her pup, her little girl, stepped out of the hut and saw Amalthea lifeless on the ground. Amber eyes, the shade exactly like the alpha’s who still had her heart, grew wide with fear and filled with tears, and though Daphnae was in pain, bruised and bleeding from gaping wounds, it hurt so much more to have her daughter bear witness to this horror.

With an anguished scream, Daphnae pulled her daughter in her arms, covering the small, defenseless pup with her body as the Persians chasing her drew closer. She closed her eyes and said another prayer, seeking forgiveness to the gods and to Kassandra for what she was about to do. Her hand clutched the dagger, the only weapon she had left, as she whispered soothingly to her daughter, making promises she won’t keep. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, wanting the last of memory to be the sweet scent of that which was brought into the world with love.

A roar, fiercer than any lion’s, stayed Daphnae’s hand. The Persians behind her also stopped, and they only had time to turn around before a force that would make even the gods tremble came upon them.

An alpha, unmistakable who by scent alone, tore into the Persians with such savagery that Daphnae could not look away. With one hand, Kassandra lifted a man into the air and snapped his neck while she drove her spear into the throat of the other, and then kicked another Persian trying to flank her, sending him into the fire. The choking Persian still stuck to her spear, she lunged for the rest, showing them as much mercy as they gave.

Daphnae always knew that Kassandra was a god among mortals, but it was only now that she saw it for herself. The Persians could do little to fight back, the force that nearly wiped out the Daughters of Artemis proving to be nothing compared to the might of the Eagle Bearer.

As the last Persian lay dying, his arms having been torn right off, Kassandra turned around, the terrifying rage melting away and becoming heartbreaking concern.

“Daphnae,” the alpha whispered, and Daphnae would have collapsed at the sound of her voice and the softness of her tone were she not already on her knees.

Kassandra took a step forward and then stopped, her eyes on the dagger in Daphnae’s hand. The alpha didn’t have to say a thing for Daphnae to know what she was thinking.

_“Go, and never return!”_  Daphnae had yelled what felt like a lifetime ago.

Kassandra sheathed her spear, and though she tried to resist, she couldn’t help but try to get a look at the whimpering girl Daphnae held protectively. She dared not approach. Few things were more dangerous than an omega whose pup was threatened, after all, especially an omega whose last words to her had been, _“If we meet again, I will kill you.”_

At the moment, with everything slowly sinking in, Daphnae didn’t know whether she loved the alpha even more for being respectful, or if she hated her for keeping her distance because all she wanted right now, more than ever, was to be held in those strong arms again.

“Daphnae, I’m so sorry,” Kassandra said, looking pained as she glanced at the burning village and the bodies of the fallen Daughters and beasts. “I sailed to Chios the moment I found out. I didn’t know-- you didn’t…” The alpha shook her head, cursing at herself, and then tried again after she took a moment to calm down. “Is she all right?”

Daphnae looked down, feeling a deep ache in her chest when she saw her daughter curled up and sobbing, so small and frightened. Unable to respond to Kassandra’s question, for she didn’t know the answer, Daphnae threw the dagger away and held her crying pup, whose father looked on helplessly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still playing Odyssey a lot, so if anyone actually likes this, do let me know and I’ll make more of an effort to write the next part instead of grinding 25 fucking million XP to get one more ability point.


	2. Sutures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, wow, I was not expecting so many people to like this. I am just so happy about that. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who commented, and thanks for all the kudos, too! I really didn’t expect it, and it means a lot, seriously. I didn’t play at all until I finished this chapter.
> 
> One thing since I actually have to think about the plot now. I don’t know if there’s going to be any sex in this story since Kassandra and Daphnae are in a weird place. I’ll be covering the events of the DLC and I plan to write another story when the next episode comes out and make an AU of that, so if not this story, then the next two will definitely include sex because I like happy endings. I need practice writing sex, though, so prepare to be disappointed when it does happen.
> 
> I’m also still sorting out the timeline. The game itself was pretty stupid with it. The DLC, for example, is supposed to take place like 10 years after the base game. And the base game itself was like 9 years.
> 
> Another thing and probably most important, I’m going to take a LOT of artistic liberty when it comes to Isu stuff. A lot of it, especially in the DLC, lines up with how I see my own omegaverse, so I’m going to be working that angle. I also added my own twist to Daphnae’s hunt questline.

_“You are skilled, Kassandra,” Daphnae remarked, the pelt of the Kalydonian Boar in her hands, presented to her by the alpha mercenary who stood proud. Daphnae couldn’t help but smirk. Of course the alpha would be smug to see an omega admiring the trophy she offered. It was praise well-earned, she decided. “A clean kill, and a deft hand. This pelt is in impeccable condition. I don’t see any damage.”_

_“The boar certainly had other ideas, and many little boar friends. Many, many little boar friends. So many.”_

_Daphnae laughed, not expecting the alpha to joke when she could have kept on regaling her glorious kill. It was peculiar, and endearing. “They troubled you much, its little friends?”_

_“Let’s just say me and my crew are going to have a lot of boar meat to eat for days to come. We may not even go through it all before it goes bad, but Barnabas will certainly try,” Kassandra said, grinning when Daphnae laughed again._

_“The man loves his boar?”_

_“Almost as much as he loves the gods.” Kassandra chuckled, the two of them sharing a smile. The alpha then looked at the pelt Daphnae still held, her expression turning serious. “You were right, Daphnae, about this beast. The Kalydonian Boar certainly is no ordinary boar.”_

_Daphnae nodded, her gaze lingering on the boar’s snout, particularly at the missing right tusk. “You heeded my words, then, to leave the object be?”_

_“I’ve never seen anything like it, Daphnae.”_

_Daphnae’s grip on the pelt tightened. “Kassandra, it’s an instrument of the gods. It is not meant for mortals. I know you think the things we cannot explain are not all ordained by the gods, but hubris?”_

_“It changed shape.”_

_“What?”_

_“The boar’s tusk. It changed shape after I picked it up.” Kassandra held out her hand, showing Daphnae a strange, metal strip that spanned the length of the alpha’s large hand. The object glowed an otherworldly gold._

* * *

For the first time since he began traveling the Greek world with Kassandra, Barnabas realized just how dangerous the alpha could be. She descended upon the Persian ship like she was the wrath of the gods, tearing it and its men open. For clues. For answers. For Daphnae and her sisters. For the daughter she never knew she had with the omega she never stopped loving. She was in pain, and she was afraid of what might have happened, of what she may have lost, and in her rampage, Barnabas didn’t think she could tell friend from foe.

He stopped the crew, not letting them board with Kassandra. He almost regretted telling her that they sighted the Persian ship in Chios’ docks. She should be with Daphnae and their daughter, to be by the omega’s side while the physician tended to her, but Barnabas saw Kassandra, how she shook with rage, how she paced like a caged, feral animal while they waited for the physician to finish with other patients, and he knew keeping the alpha in the city would risk the lives of innocent people. Better that these Persians suffered her ire than the people of Chios, who already lost too many Daughters of Artemis today.

Better that Kassandra’s daughter didn’t see her father like this.

“See to the crowd,” Barnabas instructed the crew. “Make sure no one goes near the Persian ship, and if any of the guards show up, throw a heavy pouch of drachmae in their faces and send them on their way!”

He didn’t know how long he waited, listening to every Persian crewman die a slow death. They were all loyal to the end of their lives. Kassandra would have no answers and promises to bring back to Daphnae.

When the Persian ship, what remained of it and its crew, finally fell silent, Barnabas made his way to the deck. He found Kassandra searching the bodies of the dead, rifling through torn armor and severed body parts with a desperation that broke Barnabas’ heart. He had come to love Kassandra like a daughter, and to see the strong, sure alpha so helpless made him want to comfort her. He knew, however, that it wasn’t his attention or his love she needed right now, that he couldn’t soothe the ache she felt. The one who held such power was currently with the Chios physician, probably being as difficult as her alpha.

“Did you find anything?” Barnabas asked, keeping his tone light. He would not have Kassandra thinking he was afraid of her, that he thought her a monster.

“No.” Kassandra grunted, giving up the search because there was no more to done. She cleared her throat. Her voice had gone hoarse from all the yelling and snarling. Her armor was more red with blood than it was with color.

“Oh.” Barnabas approached, putting a hand on Kassandra’s shoulder. He did it with no hesitation, to show he trusted that she would not lash out at him. “Perhaps that new, mysterious friend of yours in Makedonia has found more information about this Order of the Ancients.”

“If he’ll even speak to me after what I did,” Kassandra grumbled, scowling just thinking about the stubborn old man.

Barnabas scoffed and this time gave Kassandra’s shoulder a pat. “Nonsense! He’ll understand why you rushed off to Chios. He has a child of his own, doesn’t he? The boy seemed nothing like him at all. I’m sure he’ll talk some sense into him. I think it’s in everyone’s best interest to work together, and Natakas looks like he’s smart enough to know that. For now, there’s a mother and child you should be seeing.”

Mentioning the omega and pup had the intended effect, with Kassandra smiling for the first time since they left Makedonia. It didn’t last, though, and soon the alpha was frowning. “What do I tell Daphnae when I see her, Barnabas?” she asked, looking towards the physician’s house. “I found nothing. I failed.”

“Kassandra.” Barnabas stepped in front of the alpha, looking her in the eye. “You did not fail. You sailed with such purpose that Poseidon himself cut a path through the sea for the Adrestia. Daphnae lives because of you. Your daughter lives because of you. You did not fail, Kassandra. You protected your family.”

“My family,” Kassandra repeated, sounding uncertain but hopeful.

Barnabas smiled and nodded. “Yes, and you should go to them. Go on,” he urged, giving her a friendly nudge. “The crew and I will take it from here. And, by the gods, Kassandra, change your armor or wash off all that blood. Both would be preferable!”

* * *

Daphnae was on edge, feeling more like a trapped animal than a patient. The physician, a friendly woman whom she had sometimes seen by the village in search for ingredients, was not the problem. She was gentle and spoke in a soothing voice as she attended to Daphnae’s wounds, and she was the one who convinced the omega to let go of her pup so her injuries could be looked at.

Two women, an archer and a warrior, stood by the door. Odessa and Roxana, she had heard them called by the man who was no doubt Barnabas. Two of Kassandra’s best, Daphnae was sure, for they were trusted to guard her and her pup. They were, of course, also to make sure she would not be leaving the physician’s house until Kassandra returned. While she found them aggravating, it was Ikaros who unnerved her the most.

The eagle, it seemed, had taken it upon himself to watch over her daughter, and no amount of glaring or growling could send him away. He loomed over her sleeping pup, the poor thing having exhausted herself from crying. It was a small blessing, and Daphnae prayed her sleep was dreamless and not filled with the horrors no child should ever have to see. Much as she loathed to admit it, she had a feeling it was Ikaros’ presence that put her daughter at ease. He did watch over Kassandra when she was the same age, after all.

“Daphnae, please relax,” the physician begged. “These cuts are deep and they need to be closed. It will be much easier for me to suture them if you’re not twitching like a shark washed ashore.”

Daphnae bared her fangs in protest, but since the physician was presently attending to the gash on her back, it went unseen.

“Daphnae,” the physician continued to plead, seeming to have sensed the reaction anyway. “The sooner I finish, the sooner you can rest. Please. For the sake of your pup and your mate.”

Daphnea’s breath caught. Her muscles tensed, and her heart began to race. “She is not my mate.” Her voice faltered. She hated that it did.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” After that, the physician began to resume her suturing since Daphnae sat still. “She’s beautiful, your pup,” the woman said later on.

Daphnae glanced at her daughter on the bed nearby, relieved to see her still asleep. “She is that.” Her sisters and their noble beasts loved her pup as much as she did. She was their treasure, their most precious thing, and they gave their lives for her. They would be glad to know she was safe now, that they didn’t die in vain.

There was now a hollow place in her heart, right where they used to be. Daphnae closed her eyes, fighting back the tears. She would not cry. She would not break. Her sisters deserved better.

Daphnae didn’t even notice that the physician had finished up, the pain of the suturing no match for the pain of her loss.

“Rest as much as you can, Daphnae,” the physician told her, and she nodded as she listened. “Don’t force yourself, except to eat. Give your wounds time to heal. I had a bath prepared for you. Let’s get you cleaned up so you can get some sleep.”

Daphnae murmured a quiet, “Thank you,” and followed the physician, eager to hold her daughter again. For a moment, she was appreciative of the two women standing guard at the door, and thankful for Ikaros and his vigilance.

Her pup would be safe with them until she returned. They would make sure of it. Kassandra had made sure of it.

* * *

Kassandra arrived at the physician’s house, finding the woman seeing to her patients outside, none of which were Daphnae or her pup. Alarmed, she hurried, and she must have had the look of a wolf on the prowl, because the crowd of patients parted and cowered, some of them even fleeing.

“Where are they?” the alpha demanded, baring her fangs at the woman.

“Kassandra, calm down,” Roxana said, stepping between the agitated alpha and the brave physician, who was told by Odessa to continue working on her current patient. “They’re fine. Daphnae is fine. Her pup is fine. They’re inside the house, resting.”

“The physician’s letting them stay until Daphnae wakes up. That is why she’s here outside with her other patients,” Odessa pointed out, and when Kassandra’s glare turned to her, she spoke before the alpha growled out another question. “And before you also yell at us, Roxana and I are here because we wanted to give them some peace. Ikaros is with them.”

Kassandra closed her eyes and focused, getting a glimpse of Daphnae and her daughter through Ikaros. They were sleeping, just as Odessa and Roxana told her. Quickly, she cut the link off with her eagle, already feeling bad for spying on the omega and her pup, but she just had to see herself.

She opened her eyes, the anger and the fear soothed away by the vision of the mother and child. She looked at Odessa and Roxana, who nodded, accepting her silent apology. “I’m sorry,” she said anyway, especially to the physician. “Thank you for your aid, and for offering them the comfort of your home.” Then, to Odessa and Roxana, she said, “Pay her, and pay her well.”

Thanking the physician one more time, Kassandra quietly opened the door. She had to speak with Daphnae, but she didn’t want to wake the pup if she could help it. Ikaros, perched by the bed, greeted her with a meaningful look before resuming his steadfast watch on the sleeping pup.

Her gaze following Ikaros’, Kassandra approached the bed, feeling like she was about to step into sacred ground and that she wasn’t worthy. Daphnae was sleeping on her side, hair loose and still damp from a recent bath. Curled in the omega’s arms was her daughter - their daughter, her mind dared to insist - sleeping soundly in her mother’s embrace.

Black hair, Kassandra noted, just like her mother’s.  _I think she has my eyes,_ the alpha thought, feeling joy at the possibility that this beautiful girl had something of hers. Seeing the omega and pup made her heart swell with hope, and she couldn’t stop herself from wondering if there was enough room in that bed for her.

_Not now,_ she scolded herself.

_But maybe. Maybe._

Already regretting what she was about to do, Kassandra spoke, keeping it to a whisper. “Daphnae, wake up.”

“Kassandra?” Daphnae mumbled sleepily, reacting more to her scent than to her voice.

Kassandra fought to ignore the effect it had on her. Her name was spoken unguarded, with affection, exactly how she used to hear it before, when she had to wake Daphnae and tell her she had to leave, promising to return with another pelt.

“What is it?” Daphnae asked, now fully awake, and the edge in her voice cut through the alpha like a blade. The omega also sat up, her pup hidden behind her. If she saw the hurt in Kassandra’s eyes at the action, she made no show of it.

“We need to talk,” Kassandra said, walking to the other end of the house. If this was how Daphnae decided to treat her, then she would respect it. What else had she done but honor the omega’s wishes?

Daphnae followed her, her movements slowed by the pain of her injuries.

“How are you feeling?” Kassandra couldn’t stop herself from asking.

“I will be fine. You know this,” Daphnae replied dismissively. “Talk. Tell me, who are these Persians? Why did my home burn, my family? Why is my daughter being hunted?”

Kassandra needed a moment before she could answer. It hurt to hear, the omega claiming their pup as just hers, but she won’t argue. She had no right to. “Because of us, Daphnae, what we are,” she said when she found her voice. _Focus on the threat,_ she told herself, not her aching heart. “Mostly, because of me. They call themselves the Order of the Ancients, and they’ve taken it upon themselves to rid the world of us, what they call Tainted Ones, to return it to balance,” she growled out the last of those words, itching to crush another Persian’s throat in her hands. “The things I’ve done over the years, it drew them here. They knew about you. They knew about her.”

She handed Daphnae a scroll, the same one she had found on an Ancient of the Order in Makedonia, from which she read words penned by those who hunted her that she had a daughter with Daphnae. She watched the omega read the scroll, distracted when a lock of black hair slipped from behind her ear. Daphnae often had her long hair in a neat bun, and the times Kassandra saw it loose, they were either making love or basking in it. The alpha looked away and stepped back, else the omega’s scent would undo her.

“How?” Daphnae asked, nearly tearing the scroll in her hands. “How did they find out?”

“They’re everywhere, like the Cult.”

“The Cult of Kosmos? I thought you dealt with them.”

“I did, but the damage they’ve done is felt long after I’ve snuffed them all out. They started the war, profited from it, and the war rages on, even without them. And now this, this Order, hunting me. Hunting us, Daphnae. Her.” Kassandra sighed. Risking Daphnae’s anger, she looked at the omega’s pup, needing to see herself that the girl was still there. “I never wanted for you to be involved in this, least of all her.”

A question hung in the air now, one Kassandra was about to ask, but Daphnae deflected it with another. “What of the rest of my sisters? Are they in danger?”

“No. They shouldn’t be. It’s you and the pup the Order is after.” Kassandra faced Daphnae then, making herself look the omega in the eye despite the shame she felt in what she was about to admit. “I wish I could tell you that you’re safe now, Daphnae, that I’ve gotten rid of this Order like I did the Cult, but I couldn’t find anything from their crew or their ship. I need to go to Makedonia. There is a man there who can help me hunt them back as they have us, and I promise, to your and your pup, that I will make every last one of them pay for what they did here today.”

Daphnae didn’t respond, not immediately, only looking back at her until Kassandra felt like she could drown in the color of the omega’s vibrant green eyes. The alpha didn’t realize she was drawing closer until Daphnae said, “I believe you, Kassandra,” and she could feel omega’s breath on her lips.

Kassandra was the first to back off, and quickly. She would not be able to bear it if Daphnae rejected her, not again. _Focus, idiot, focus,_ she told her heart. _Don’t,_ she told her dick, threatening it before it dared to impose its presence. _Not the time. Not the fucking time._

“Will Ikaros stay with us so he will know where to find us once it’s safe?” Daphnae asked, and the question, to Kassandra, what it implied, was like being thrown into the cold sea in the middle of the night during a storm.

“I’m taking you both to Sparta,” the alpha declared, cutting straight to the point. “It’s safe there, now, with my mater, pater, and brothers, and that is where you and your pup will stay until I’ve dealt with the Order.”

Kassandra knew she shouldn’t have raised her voice, that she shouldn’t have spoken with such a strong, alpha tone that left no room for options or reason. Daphnae hated that. The omega was headstrong and proud, more an alpha in temperament than actual alphas Kassandra knew, including Spartan ones, but Daphnae won’t have her way. Not this time.

The omega snarled, and the sound of it alone would have cowed a lesser alpha. The sight of it would have sent them running. “You do not decide for me, Kassandra!” Daphnae snapped, throwing the scroll at the alpha, who flashed her fangs, angering the omega further. “This is my life. My daughter!”

“And you would be without both if I hadn’t been here!” Kassandra snarled back, stalking over to the omega. “Were I a moment too late, you would have sent her to Hades yourself and followed her shortly after! What if it happens again, Daphnae, when I’m too far away, when I don’t know where the fuck you are? Because I only knew this time thanks to that fucking scroll, and I pulled that from the corpse of a man who was trying to kill me! From that, Daphnae. From that, I found out I was a father. Not from the omega I love, whom I made this beautiful pup with, but from a piece of fucking paper!”

_How could you do this to me?_ She couldn’t bring herself to ask, afraid that the answer would break her.

“I am sorry, Kassandra,” Daphnae whispered, and she sounded hurt, even looked it. “I’m so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around herself, and it took all of Kassandra’s strength not to pull the omega into an embrace. The show of vulnerability and loneliness was fleeting, however, and the next moment, Daphnae’s expression hardened, her voice steeled. “If you insist on putting a leash on me, then take me with you, not to Sparta.”

“To Makedonia? You’re mad!” Kassandra roared in frustration, but before she could further pick a fight with Daphnae, a confused whimper sounded from the bed. The alpha’s yelling had awoken the pup, and Ikaros expressed his disapproval with a judgmental squawk.

“Yes,” Daphnae said calmly, already making her way to her daughter. “I’ll personally see to it that my sisters are avenged.”

“You’re injured!”

“I will heal. You know this.”

“And your pup?” Kassandra asked, following the omega with a growl.

Daphnae didn’t answer. She didn’t need to. The look on her face said it all.

“Fine!” Kassandra gave up, but not happily. “We’re leaving. Now.” With that and another growl, the alpha stormed out of the physician’s house, slamming the door so hard it broke. She cursed all the way to the Adrestia, wondering why, of all the omegas to have a pup with and be in love with, it had to be Daphnae, the most stubborn omega in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to step away from the fic for a bit, like a couple of days, so I don't get burned out. I'm really liking this so I don't want this to be another incomplete fic.


	3. Amber Eyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a bit on the short side but they'll be in Makedonia in the next one, so it should pick up from there.

_“Daphnae, do you have siblings?”_

_Daphnae gave it some thought, not because it was a hard question to answer or particularly odd, but because it was unexpected. Here she sat across from an alpha who not only brought her the pelt of the Hind of Keryneia but also brought her a fresh deer kill. It seemed rude to show up so late at night without a gift, was the alpha’s reason for it, as though a legendary animal’s pelt was not enough._

_That, and she was hungry, Kassandra later admitted when Daphnae caught the alpha about to eat raw meat._

_So they prepared the deer, cooked it by the fire, and then ate together. Kassandra was ravenous, tearing into the roasted deer meat - still hot from the fire - like a starved wolf. However, despite her hunger, the alpha was adamant about equal portions, refusing to take any of Daphnae’s share even when she offered._

_Any omega, including Daphnae, would assume Kassandra wanted sex after that. Any omega, especially Daphnae, wouldn’t have minded it._

_She had also seen the way Kassandra looked at her, how the heated amber gaze would often stray and drink in her exposed skin, and then the undeniable result that left the alpha with a rather big problem Daphnae would have been more than happy to help with._

_So she was surprised, and maybe a little disappointed, that Kassandra instead wanted to know if she had any siblings._

_“I have my sisters,” she said, amused when Kassandra rolled her eyes._

_“I meant the kind of siblings whom you share a mother with, not a bed.”_

_“Oh?” Daphnae smirked. “You’ve seen my sisters sharing a bed?”_

_Kassandra snorted. “They make no secret of it. I would be scouting with Ikaros and we’d come across one of your camps and, ‘Look at that, Ikaros, the Daughters of Artemis, fucking! Again! Of course! But what else is there to do on such a sunny day?’’”_

_Daphnae laughed. The alpha was adorable. “It is one of the most pleasant ways to pass the time,” she said in defense of her sisters. “But no, I have no siblings by blood. Why do you ask? Are you having trouble with a brother or sister?”_

_“You could say that,” Kassandra muttered, suddenly pensive. Then, after a while, the alpha sighed. “I asked because I met a man in Euboea. Agapios, he was a slave, and he seemed content being one, happy, even. I still find that so odd.”_

_“Food, comfort, security, a place to belong, that is a good life to some people. Better than most, from what I’ve seen in the cities and villages.”_

_“But at the cost of your freedom?”_

_“A fair price to pay to most, to not be alone.” The last part, Daphnae whispered. “To keep to the only life they’ve ever known.”_

_“It is no life for me.” Kassandra scoffed, and then declared, “I would be alone before a slave.” Bold words were not uncommon to hear from alphas, but from Kassandra, Daphnae sensed conviction and strength that she greatly envied._

_Daphnae reached out, placing her hand on Kassandra’s. “Not everyone can be so brave,” she told the alpha with a sad smile that she quickly got rid of. “Now, this Agapios, what has he done? Did he have a job for you?”_

_Kassandra was looking at their hands, and Daphnae wondered if she was too forward with the alpha. Too often she had been told she was too aggressive for an omega, much like her mother, but she decided long ago that any alpha who felt slighted by it wasn’t worthy of her attention._

_When Kassandra smiled, clearly pleased with herself, like she had done something favorable to earn an omega’s attention and she was proud of it, Daphnae knew she was right. The alpha sitting next to her was one who deserved her attention, and more._

_“Agapios asked me to help him take down the bandits that have been terrorizing the city,” Kassandra began, her smile turning into a scowl. “Called themselves The Dagger. Stupid name. Turns out, the leader of these bandits was none other than Agapios’ brother Neritos, whom he thought dead.”_

_“Did you kill him?” Daphnae asked, and Kassandra sighed._

_“Yes. After he killed Agapios, who was foolish enough to believe his brother could be saved.”_

_“And this bothers you?”_

_Kassandra cast her eyes down. “I wanted Agapios to be right. I believed that he could help his brother. Now he’s dead. My brother, Alexios…” The alpha stopped and looked up, gazing into Daphnae’s eyes like she was wondering if she should say more. “He is like Neritos. I thought him dead long ago, when he was still a baby. Then, here in Phokis, I found out he’s alive, but he’s been turned into a monster by something worse than bandits. If Agapios couldn’t save his brother from bandits, how can I save mine?”_

_“You are not Agapios, Kassandra, and Alexios is not Neritos.” When the alpha started to look down again, Daphnae stopped her. “What happened to those brothers does not seal the fate of yours.”_

_Eventually, Kassandra exhaled, like she finally let Daphnae’s words reach her heart, and she nuzzled the omega’s hand, which had been cupping her face. “You’re right, Daphnae. Thank you. For listening to me, for letting me talk. For letting me be afraid. Around everyone else, I always have to be strong, confident in everything I say and do. No place for doubt, or regret, it is tiring. But with you, Daphnae, I feel that I can falter, and you would have the strength to hold me up, to let me lean on you. Is that strange?” Before Daphnae could respond, Kassandra scoffed at herself. “How pathetic. Look at me. An alpha, a Spartan alpha, feeling, being so weak.”_

_“To feel is not a weakness, Kassandra.” Again, Daphnae had to make the alpha look at her, though this time it came with a gentle stroke on the cheek. “I feel it, too, this kinship you speak of, and I don’t think less of you. Feeling, and acknowledging it, does not make you a lesser alpha, Kassandra. It makes you more.”_

_Kassandra chuckled, seeking Daphnae’s hand for another nuzzle, and to the omega’s shock, the alpha began to purr. “Careful, Daphnae, or there would be no getting rid of me, even after I’ve brought you all those pelts.” Kassandra was smiling now, a light in her amber eyes._

_Daphnae tried to laugh. She didn’t manage at first because, suddenly, there was a lump in her throat, and when she did, it was a breathless, empty laugh. “We shall see, Kassandra. We shall see.”_

* * *

“Chara.”

Her daughter looked up at the call of her name, and, briefly, Daphnae saw a different pair of amber eyes staring back at her. Eyes filled with questions she refused to answer, pain that she caused, and love that broke her heart. To Daphnae, it was both a gift and a curse that Chara had her father’s eyes.

Willing the thought of the sad alpha away, Daphnae sat next to her daughter on the bed. She didn’t have long to explain. The physician’s kindness extended to allowing them a moment to themselves, but soon, the woman said, she would need to have her door replaced. Kassandra had reduced the previous one to firewood. It was best they set sail before Daphnae provoked the alpha into turning the whole island over.

“Are we going home, Mater?” Chara asked with an innocence that both relieved and wounded Daphnae. Had her pup thought it was all a dream? Her dirty clothes had been changed, the blood from her hair washed, and she had slept peacefully. “I want to go home. I want to play with the wolf pups and the bear cubs. I want to help Amalthea make arrows for the next hunt. She said I was getting really good at it. Please, Mater?”

“They’re gone, little bird.” It hurt Daphnae say it, even harder to not have her voice waver. “Lost in the fire, in the fight. It’s just us now.” Seeing the hope in Chara’s eyes turn into horror, Daphnae felt she may as well have sunken the dagger in her daughter’s back.

“But why?” Chara whimpered, and at the sound, Daphnae drew her pup in her arms.

“We’ll find out, Chara, your pater and I.”

“My… pater?”

There was no use lying. Chara would know the truth the instant she scented the alpha. Daphnae would deal with the consequences, and Kassandra, later. “Yes. We’re going to Makedonia with her,” she told her pup, who sat and listened, eager for what she was about to say next, and thankfully distracted from the painful memory Daphnae brought back. “She’s waiting for us right now on her ship. We’re setting sail as soon as you’re ready to go.”

Chara looked confused, the expression much too like her father’s. “But, Mater, you said we can’t be with Pater. You said you had to send her away. Did you change your mind?”

“It’s too dangerous for us to go anywhere else right now, little bird,” Daphnae said instead of answering. The question had more weight than her pup realized, and it affected her more than she expected. “The safest place to be is with your pater. There’s no stronger alpha in the world. She will do everything in her power to ensure that no harm will come to you.”

“Is she the one who was yelling and broke the door?”

“Ah,” was all Daphnae could say at first.

Chara saw that. Of course, her pup saw that.

Ikaros, who had been politely turned away, now looked at their way. The eagle’s eyes were not glowing. Kassandra wasn’t watching but Ikaros was, and he wanted her to know that.

“That was because of me, little bird.” Daphnae turned back to her pup as she spoke, though she did catch Ikaros looking pleased, maybe with her telling the truth or ‘little bird’, or perhaps both. “Your pater and I had a disagreement. She wanted to take us to her home in Sparta, but that would take time we cannot spare and it would only endanger more lives. The three of us should stay together until your pater and I hunt down those who hurt us and make sure they don’t hurt anyone else ever again.”

“Is that what you told Pater?” Chara asked, already squinting at her.

“Not... in those words.”

Chara groaned. “Mater...”

“I know, little bird. I know, and I’m sorry.” Daphnae sighed, pulling her pup close again. “It’s very difficult for me to speak of your pater, so much more to actually speak to her.”

“I know, Mater,” Chara whispered, emitting a soft purr that Daphnae knew was meant to comfort her. “It makes you sad to talk about pater. It’s why I stopped asking. I didn’t want to make you sad because that makes me sad.”

Daphnae smiled and pressed a kiss to the top of her daughter’s head. “You are the sweetest girl. Are you ready to go? Do you want to eat again?”

That gave Chara pause. She had an appetite like her father’s. “I want to go,” the pup eventually said. “I want to meet Pater.”

Ikaros chirped in approval and flew out of the physician’s house, his exit alerting Odessa and Roxana outside, who had stayed behind to wait for them. The pair also had to add to the physician’s already sweetened fee to repair the damages their commander had caused.

Daphnae stood, taking her pup’s hand in hers.

“Mater?” Chara spoke up, not following quite yet. “When it’s safe, will Pater go home with us?”

The question, the hope that came with it, winded Daphnae, and she had nothing to hold on to but her daughter’s hand. “No, Chara,” she said, wondering how many more times she was going to hurt her pup and her alpha. “When it’s safe, we will return to our lives, and your pater will return to hers. That’s how it has to be.”

“Why?”

Why did she have to meet Kassandra and fall in love?

Why did Kassandra still love her, after all she’d done?

_Why can’t we be a family?_

_Why can’t we be happy?_

Daphnae closed her eyes, hating how the voice she heard was her own. _No,_ she told herself. _No._

“There are things in life we’re not meant to have, Chara, no matter how much we want them.” It was a harsh thing to say, especially to a pup, but Daphnae knew her daughter was strong. “You’ll understand someday, when you’re older. For now, remember that I will always be here for you. That will have to be enough.”

Chara nodded and stood from the bed, ready to follow her now. “I love you, Mater,” was what her brave pup had to say.

Daphnae smiled, her heart feeling a little lighter. “And I love you, little bird.”

* * *

Kassandra jumped to her feet, startling Barnabas. “They’re here,” the alpha whispered, sensing Ikaros. “They’re here, Barnabas!” she exclaimed this time, dragging him to stand. “How do I look? Do I take off my armor, hide my weapons? I think I still smell like dead Persian. Do I?”

Barnabas, laughing as the alpha pulled him up, gave her a hearty pat on the back. “You look like the legendary Eagle Bearer, Kassandra, a mighty Spartan alpha! What else would you look like? Hah!” He patted her back again. “And I’m sure you’ve washed off the stench of death when I told you to clean yourself up. Me, I don’t smell anything! I am an old man now, you know, but I’m sure you smell like good leather, or however it is you rugged alphas smell like!”

Usually, Barnabas’ silly ramblings eased her nerves, more than often making her laugh, but Kassandra only felt dread when she saw Roxana board the Adrestia, followed shortly by Odessa. “I just…” She hesitated then, still not that used to admitting her fears to the man she had come to see as a father. It had taken years of companionship, and it still didn’t come as easy as it did with a certain omega. “I don’t want her to be afraid of me, Barnabas.”

Barnabas smiled widely and warmly, and then hugged her from the side, giving her a firm shake. “Kassandra, she’s your daughter. Your daughter! What would she be afraid of? What are you afraid of?”

“Her mother,” the alpha muttered, having no trouble expressing that particular fear.

“Oh. Well, you look nothing like her mother, so you have nothing to worry about!”

Kassandra chuckled. She couldn’t argue with that. “Thanks, Barnabas.”

“Always happy to help, Kassandra!” Barnabas cheerfully replied, shaking her one more time before letting her go. “She will love you. I know it,” he said, always with nothing but confidence in her.

Leaving Barnabas to get the crew ready, Kassandra greeted Roxana and Odessa as they passed by, and then she approached Daphnae and her pup. The girl was staring at her, not with fear but with awe. Kassandra wanted to get closer but she kept her distance, waiting for Daphnae to make the next move.

Eventually, Daphnae did, urging her pup forward. “Chara, this is your pater. Her name is Kassandra.”

Kassandra just about forgot to breathe, unprepared to deal with two surprises at once. _Chara. Her name is Chara. And she knows I’m her pater._ She looked at Daphnae, silently asking why, and what it meant, but then she saw her pup walking towards her, and she couldn’t take her eyes off the girl.

Chara circled her, sniffing curiously. Kassandra watched the pup with a grin that grew wider and wider as the girl continued to go around her. _She does have my eyes,_ the alpha thought with glee, _and she looks like her mother._ Everything else was Daphnae’s, but it was more than Kassandra could ask for. _What a beautiful girl,_ she wanted to say out loud. _My beautiful girl._

When Chara stopped, now facing her, Kassandra squatted down to meet her pup’s gaze. She saw it then, the girl realizing what they had in common, the proof of who she was beyond her scent. Still, her pup drew near, taking a long sniff, and then she began to smile.

“You are my pater,” Chara said with such relief and joy, like she finally found something she had lost, that it nearly brought Kassandra to tears.

“I am your pater, Chara,” she told the pup, her pup. “I’m your pater.”

As if Kassandra had said the magic words, Chara lunged and closed what little space there was between them. Kassandra managed to open her arms in time to catch her small pup, but was far too stunned to move. Chara, her daughter, hers and Daphnae’s, clinging to her, asking to be held, asking for her father to hold her. What else could a father do but oblige?

Gently, suddenly fearful of her great strength, Kassandra wrapped her arms around her small pup. Her small pup, who was so happy she was purring. The alpha’s breath hitched, a sob caught in her throat. She buried her nose in Chara’s hair, breathing in her daughter’s scent that was part hers and Daphnae’s.

Kassandra closed her eyes and just breathed, wanting to remember this moment, to never forget how sweet her pup smelled. She didn’t dare hope that this was anything other than a small mercy from Daphnae, so she seized it, and she would seize any more like it, take whatever scrap Daphnae deemed she deserved, no matter how small, because if small was anything like the girl in her arms, then it would be more than enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a couple of things in the previous chapter. It now shows that Daphnae knows about the Cult of Kosmos. Kassandra now also says her mother, father, and brother are in Sparta. I’m also thinking about replacing Neema with that piece of crap forced on Kassandra in the DLC. I figure if I wanted Daphnae to bite someone’s head off, I’d rather it be him than Neema.
> 
> Thanks again for all the kudos, and a special thank you to everyone who took the time to comment, especially the long ones! I hope you all know I really appreciate them!


	4. A Fool In Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does the beginning of the flashback warrant an E rating? I’ve kept it M for now, but let me know if it needs to be changed.
> 
> And I’m sorry. One scene turned to three, so the chapter is over by the time they make it to Makedonia.

_“You know.” Daphnae hummed, almost purred. “My father was a Spartan. A Spartan alpha, like you.”_

_Beneath her, Kassandra laughed. “You tell me this while I’m inside you?” The alpha looked exquisite: laid out naked on the ground, hair barely contained in the braid, like a wild stallion broken, thoroughly ridden._

_“Yes,” Daphnae replied after she took her time admiring her conquest. What a prize Kassandra was. “What else is there to do while we are tied? We already ate, and we are both much too excited for sleep.” To prove her point, she gave the alpha’s large cock a squeeze. The even larger knot that kept them tied had not only persisted through many peaks, so many that Daphnae had lost count, but it also remained at full size._

_Kassandra answered with a sharp buck of her hips, the power of it making Daphnae clutch the alpha’s shoulders to brace herself. “What kind of alpha would I be if I didn’t want to keep an omega like you?” Kassandra growled softly, voice edged with arrogance and possessiveness, so distinctly alpha._

_Had it been from any other alpha, Daphnae would have challenged it, fought for dominance, but from Kassandra, she felt no such urge. This alpha was worthy, her instincts told her. Want for only the best, her mother had taught her, and there was no better alpha than Kassandra, Daphnae was certain._

_“You were saying about your father?” Kassandra asked when the spike of arousal passed. Large, calloused hands stroked her hips. It felt wonderful, threatening to stir her back up again, but Daphnae liked it too much to tell the alpha to stop. “It’s unusual for a Spartan alpha to mate outside of Sparta. Was she also a mercenary like me? That would be quite the coincidence.”_

_“Then would you believe she met my mother in Argolis, after she had slain the Nemean Lion of her time, just as you have done for me?” Daphnae asked, smiling. The alpha looked adorable when she was confused. She had the cutest pout._

_“Daphnae, if these hunts are an elaborate courtship ritual for Artemis’ chosen huntress, I would like to know,” Kassandra grumbled, but Daphnae heard it, the hope with which ‘courtship’ was said, and it made her heart both race and ache to know the alpha felt such affection for her._

_“It is as you say, Kassandra, a coincidence.” Daphnae’s hands began to wander as she spoke, to keep herself from thinking other things, like love. Kassandra had a magnificent body, a pleasing distraction, and she particularly enjoyed tracing the grooves of the alpha’s well-defined abs. “My father was a warrior, though I suppose that is true for any Spartan alpha. She knew nothing of the trials when she slew the Nemean Lion, only that the beast made prey of the people in Epidauros. She went on to complete the other hunts after she met my mother. That is all I know of her. She died long before I was born, in a duel to the death. It brought my mother great pain to talk about her, and I did not wish to add to her suffering. I knew my mother loved my father, so much that she never again loved another, and that is enough for me.”_

_“Duel to the death?” Kassandra repeated, and then shook her head, scowling in disgust. “Spartans. I’m sorry your father chose honor over family, Daphnae.” The alpha had told her of her own father, what he had done at Mount Taygetos, so there was both spite and hurt in Kassandra’s voice when she spoke. “What of your mother?” the alpha asked, and this time, her tone was soft._

_“She is where my father is,” Daphnae said, and, suddenly feeling a need for closeness, she lay herself on top of Kassandra and tucked her head under the alpha’s chin. “It is my hope that they’ve found each other, and that they are together again.” Feeling Kassandra’s arms wrap around her, and with them the warmth and strength of the alpha, Daphnae purred. It was rare for her to purr, but she felt so safe in Kassandra’s arms, like it was where she belonged, that it felt so natural to do._

_“You wish for that, even though your father was such a fool?”_

_“A fool my mother loved for the rest of her life.” Daphnae sighed, nuzzling Kassandra’s neck and breathing in the alpha’s scent. It was strong but pleasant, just like Kassandra. Then, quietly, she said, “I hope she’s forgiven her.”_

_Kassandra huffed and rumbled in protest. “You deserved better, Daphnae. You deserved a father, and your mother deserved a mate. If I could have a mate and pups, I would never leave them, not for honor, not for any law, and not for any god.”_

_“If you could?” That confused Daphnae. She lifted her head to look at the alpha, needing to see her face. “You believe these to be out of your reach, Kassandra? A mate, pups, a family?”_

_Kassandra sighed, like the question was something she had asked herself many times. “I am different, Daphnae. Be it of the gods or something beyond our own understanding, I’m something… else. I have slain three of your legendary beasts, and I have kept the artifacts from each one. Their power doesn’t sway me, does not make me go mad like that huntress you spoke of. Instead mine sways them, makes them change shape when I touch them.” There was no pride in Kassandra’s voice, only resignation. No smirk on the alpha’s face, only a frown. “My bloodline, my family, it’s the target of the Cult. My brother, look what they’ve done to him, and my mother is out there somewhere, hiding from them. I refuse to put this burden on a mate, to bring pups into a life like this.”_

_“Were I in heat, you would have refused me?” Daphnae asked, and it surprised her how much it hurt, just thinking about Kassandra rejecting her, not wanting her._

_“Daphnae, if I didn’t feel for you, I would have refused you even if you were,” Kassandra said with such tenderness, such vulnerability, that it left Daphnae breathless._

_They weren’t tied anymore, Daphnae realized. She had been aware of it, the alpha’s knot relenting as their conversation went on, so it was just a matter of time, but still it was sudden, the hollowness, the empty feeling. She had never felt it before, not with other alphas._

_Kassandra, seeming to sense her distress, gently pulled her down until her forehead rested on the alpha’s. Needing more, Daphnae sought Kassandra’s lips for a kiss: rough, angry, desperate. She buried her fingers in Kassandra’s hair and pulled, hard, and the alpha not only yielded to her but also purred._

_I’m here, Kassandra was silently telling her. I’m yours._

_What joy it brought. What pain._

* * *

Chara could hardly sit still. She had just met her father. Her father. _My pater!_

Her mother had said her father was a mighty warrior, a strong alpha - the strongest in the world - and Chara saw why. Her father was tall, really tall, and had big muscles. She could be very mean and scary if she wanted to, but not to Chara. Her father had kind eyes, a soft voice, and gave one of the best hugs she had ever gotten.

Her father was busy right now. She was the commander of the ship, after all, so there at the helm she stood, giving orders to her crew. Chara wanted to go over there and join her father, to ask to sit on her shoulders while they sailed, but that meant leaving her mother’s side, and she didn’t want to do that.

Her mother sat with her, also watching her father. Were they still upset with each other? They talked, but only about where they were going. Her father told her mother that they were sailing to Lesbos and docking there for the night, and then they would be off to Makedonia the next day. Her mother then said, “All right,” and they hadn’t spoken to each other since.

“No a single pirate ship in sight, Kassandra,” Barnabas said, the old man standing next to her father at the helm. “The sky is clear, the winds blow north. Poseidon continues to smile on us!”

“Only merchant ships in Ikaros’ sight. That’s good,” her father replied. “A quiet trip to Lesbos is just what we need.”

“Chara.” Her mother suddenly spoke, surprising her. It also surprised her father, who couldn’t help but look at them. “Do you want to pass the time with your father?”

Her father perked up like a wolf eager to play, but stayed put like a trained one, waiting for her answer.

“I do, Mater,” she said, looking at her mother hopefully. “Is that okay?”

Her mother nodded. “Of course, little bird.”

Chara then looked at her father, who now stared at her mother with wide eyes.

“You heard her, Kassandra!” Barnabas laughed and pushed her father over to them. “You are relieved until further notice, Commander. Go on, now, go spend some time with your family!”

“Barnabas,” her father growled, but Barnabas just laughed again because it wasn’t a scary growl at all. Chara tried not to smile. She didn’t want her father to think she wanted to laugh at her, too.

“I’m sorry,” her father told her mother. “He’s old. Ignore him.”

“This old man heard that!”

Family. Barnabas called them a family. It sounded so nice.

“Sit next to me, Pater,” Chara said, scooting closer to her mother so there would be enough space for her father.

Her father waited for another nod from her mother before she moved, sitting next to her with a big smile on her face. “Chara.” Just saying her name made her father so happy. “How are you doing, pup? Do you feel sick? Is this your first time sailing?”

Chara shook her head cheerfully, giving her excited father a matching smile. “I don’t feel sick. Mater and I go sailing a lot, so I’m used to it!”

“Are you? That’s impressive,” her father said, clearly proud of her, and it made her giddy. “You know, I didn’t get to sail until I was much older than you.”

“Did you feel sick, Pater?”

“Very. I almost threw up on Barnabas’ feet!”

“And then, eventually, she did!” Barnabas said. “Should have brought a goat. My favorite pair of sandals would not have been ruined if the seas were calm that day!”

Chara looked at her mother. “Is that true, Mater?”

Her mother smiled and held her close. “While I’ve never heard the story of Barnabas’ sandals, your father did tell me her first sailing experience was not a pleasant one.”

Her father chuckled. “It took me a while to get my sea legs but I don’t get seasick anymore, I promise. You, though, pup, it sounds like you’re a natural sailor.”

“I’m a huntress!” Chara declared, sitting straighter, prouder. “A Daughter of Artemis!”

Her father ruffled her hair. “You’re going to be an amazing huntress, Chara. The best. Just like your mater.”

Chara felt like she could fly from how happy she felt. Sitting between her mother and her father, her mother holding her and her father ruffling her hair, she felt like the luckiest pup in the world. Her family was complete, and so was she.

Then her father’s hand fell away, and the feeling was gone.

“Pater,” she said, catching her father’s hand before it was out of reach, “do you really have to go again after this? I know Mater had to send you away before I was born, but you’re here now. Can’t you stay?”

Her father looked at her mother, and she felt her mother tense up, like she was ready to fight. _No,_ Chara wanted to cry. She didn’t want that, but before she could say she was sorry and take back what she asked, her father gently squeezed her hands.

“Chara, there is nothing in the world I want more than to be with you and your mater.” Her father’s voice trembled, and her eyes looked so sad that Chara wanted to hug her. “I don’t want to leave you again.”

“Then don’t leave, Pater. Please?” she whined, and her father wiped her tears. She didn’t even realize she was crying.

“I’m sorry, pup. I wish it were that simple. I wish I can explain it to you better. But I’m here, for now, and I’ll be with you in Makedonia. Let’s make the most of the time we have, okay?”

Chara sniffed, but she nodded.

“Go on, little bird,” she heard her mother say. “Go to your father. It’s okay.”

With a little push from her mother, Chara climbed on her father’s lap. Her father held her, kissed the top of her head and rubbed her back, and then even purred for her until her sniffling stopped. When she felt better, she began to purr back for her father.

_You make feel safe, Pater,_ she wanted to say with her purr. _You make me happy._

_I’ll miss you when you go._

* * *

Daphnae woke up to a jolt of pain, feeling a pull on her injured arm. Chara was having a nightmare, the whimpering pup clinging to her desperately. Chara was strong, stronger than she realized, and in her state, she had no control of it.

Daphnae cursed her injuries and the Persians responsible for it. The Chios physician had no inkling how grave her wounds had actually been, how the gash on her back had cut through bone, how close she had come to losing the arm Chara now held onto. No sutures could have held her together when Kassandra picked her up from the fire.

The danger had passed, and her body could do no more, not without food, which she had no appetite for, and rest, which she couldn’t afford, not when her daughter was denied it. The good food and comfortable bed in this Eresos inn meant nothing if it couldn’t give Chara any peace.

“Chara,” she called softly to her pup. “Little bird, wake up. It’s just a bad dream. Mater’s here with you.” Letting Chara continue to cling, she used her other arm to rub her daughter’s back.

Chara stirred but didn’t wake, curling into a ball and trembling.

“Is she all right?”

Daphnae would have jumped if she had the strength or energy to. Kassandra stood by the bed, Ikaros perched on her shoulder. Daphnae had forgotten how quietly her big alpha could move, and how quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Kassandra whispered. “I heard her cry. I thought she was hurt.”

In the dark room, Daphnae could see Kassandra perfectly. The alpha didn’t have her armor on, but she did have her spear. She must have been sleeping herself, and then rushed in the moment Chara whimpered.

Most of the Adrestia crew stayed by the ship in the docks, but Kassandra and a few others were just outside. While the trip to Lesbos had been thankfully uneventful, the alpha didn’t want to let her guard down, and though Daphnae wouldn’t say it out loud, she was only able to sleep knowing Kassandra was nearby.

“Bad dreams,” she told the worried alpha, the worried father.

Daphnae felt she herself wasn’t worrying enough. Kassandra’s scent was disarming, and distracting.

Kassandra kneeled to get a better look at Chara, and Daphnae couldn’t help but notice that the alpha looked exactly the same, still the same handsome face she last kissed years ago. There were new scars that Daphnae could see and more she couldn’t, she was sure, but what stood out was the large scar right in the middle of Kassandra’s chest, so large there may be a matching one on her back. What, or who, could have dealt such a fatal blow to the Eagle Bearer?

“Was she like this when Ikaros was with you in Chios?” Kassandra asked, the alpha’s hands twitching, wanting to touch their pup and give comfort, and Daphnae didn’t know whether or not she was glad Kassandra didn’t ask for permission, because she would have allowed it.

“No, she slept well. I wondered if Ikaros had something to do with it.”

“Ikaros protected me in my dreams when I was a child. He must have a similar bond with Chara.” Again Kassandra’s hands twitched, and again the alpha denied her fatherly instincts. Instead, Kassandra looked at her. “Will you let Ikaros stay here?”

“Of course,” Daphnae readily agreed. _Please,_ she almost added.

Ikaros hopped off Kassandra’s shoulders and settled next to Chara. In an instant, the pup relaxed, the grip on her injured arm slacking and giving her much needed relief. Daphnae adjusted Chara in her arms, careful not to wake their pup now that she was sleeping peacefully. Kassandra watched her, the alpha’s gaze on her wounds.

“Does it hurt bad? I have hemlock.”

Daphnae shook her head, not trusting herself to speak. It was too much, Kassandra’s kindness, Kassandra’s love, and unlike the alpha, she didn’t know if she could fight her own instincts any more than she had been doing all day.

_Come here,_ she would have said. _Come here and hold me. Please._

Getting only her silence, Kassandra stood up. “I’ll let you rest, Daphnae.”

“Please,” she started to say, but her alpha was long gone.

* * *

Kassandra prowled the upper deck of the Adrestia, the alpha angry and getting angrier. Despite the distance, Daphnae felt the dangerous energy from where she was sitting. Chara also sensed it, the pup having gone quiet and attempting to make herself look smaller than she already was.

Daphnae wouldn’t have it. Chara shouldn’t be afraid of her own father.

“Barnabas,” she called, and the old man immediately spun to face her. “Can you watch Chara for a moment? I want to speak with Kassandra.”

Barnabas’ face split into a grin, the old man not bothering to hide his relief. “You do? That’s wonderful, Daphnae! I was about to do that myself but better you than me, I’d say! I would love to keep the little one company while you figure out what’s bothering Kassandra all of a sudden.”

Taking Chara’s hand, Daphnae walked her pup to the helm. “Behave for Barnabas, okay, little bird? He’s the commander right now.”

“I will, Mater,” Chara said, and then squeezed her hand. “Please don’t fight with Pater.”

“I won’t,” Daphnae promised, and then kissed the top of their pup’s head. Murmuring a, “Thank you,” to Barnabas, she made her way to Kassandra.

The crew of archers and warriors parted for her and gave her a clear path to the alpha. They were afraid, Daphnae realized. These seasoned fighters who had seen war, death, and courted an audience with Hades every single day, they didn’t dare risk the ire of the Eagle Bearer. Even Odessa and Roxana, the two women who seemed to be most familiar with Kassandra, kept their distance, though they were the only two brave enough to stand within an arm’s reach of the alpha. They didn’t speak, though. That was up to Daphnae.

“Kassandra,” she called the alpha, cutting off the deep, terrifying growl that Kassandra herself likely wasn’t aware she was doing.

Kassandra turned to her sharply, the alpha’s fangs bared. That made Odessa and Roxana step back further, but Daphnae stepped forward, responding to the alpha with a growl of her own.

“You’re scaring Chara. What’s wrong?”

Daphnae knew she wasn’t the reason. Kassandra, if she held any resentment towards Daphnae, never showed it. The alpha was happy to greet Chara this morning, and even spent their first few hours at sea chatting and laughing with their pup.

It was when Ikaros returned from scouting Makedonia ahead of them that the alpha’s mood soured. Ikaros wasn’t around, Daphnae noticed. Kassandra likely sent him to Makedonia once more.

“Chara?” Kassandra rasped, their pup’s name tempering the alpha’s rage. “Where is she, Daphnae?”

“With Barnabas,” Daphnae said, putting a hand on Kassandra’s chest to keep her alpha in place. “You will see her when you’ve calmed down, understand? Talk to me, Kassandra. Tell me what’s wrong.”

It took a moment, but after a few deep breaths, Kassandra nodded.

“It’s Alexios,” the alpha said, a bit of growl returning to her voice. “He’s in Makedonia.”

“Your brother? You saved him from the Cult?”

“I took him away from the Cult and destroyed it, but what the Cult had done to him, there’s no saving him from it. He slips into spells. Violent spells. He has awful dreams not even Ikaros can protect him from. He broke Stentor’s arm when they were sparring, thinking he was in a real fight. Once, I had to pull his hands away from Mater’s throat. He wasn’t even awake, just kept screaming ‘Chrysis’ over and over.”

“That…” Daphnae trailed off, finding the words, but there were none to say except, “that’s awful.”

“There are good days.” Kassandra’s smiled, though briefly. “He smiles, he laughs. He hugs Mater and tells him he loves her. He goes hunting with me, Pater, and Stentor. Then he thinks about what he’s done, and he locks himself away, doesn’t eat or sleep for days. Sometimes he forgets where he is, who he is. Tells me to call him ‘Deimos’.”

At this point, Daphnae noticed that her hand was still on Kassandra’s chest, but she didn’t pull away, letting the alpha talk.

“We keep him away from fighting, away from the war. It helps. He likes to work in the farms, help build things instead of tearing them down. He’s happier, even if Mater looks at him like he’s half an alpha, or not even one anymore.” Kassandra shook her head, and then said, “Alexios shouldn’t be in Makedonia. He should be in Sparta.”

_Like you and Chara,_ was what went unsaid, but Daphnae knew.

“Don’t compare me to Alexios, Kassandra,” she told the alpha, making sure her voice didn’t rise and that she didn’t growl. She made a promise to their daughter, after all.

“He is my brother,” the alpha murmured, “and you are the mother of my child.”

Most omegas would have looked away at the intensity of Kassandra’s gaze, daunted by the power of it, but Daphnae not only met it head-on, she stepped even closer to the alpha.

“I told Chara we will not be fighting, and I intend to keep my word.” She spoke slowly, careful not to provoke Kassandra or herself. “If you took us to Sparta, you may not have any Persians to hunt by the time you make it to Makedonia, and no trail to follow. I know you think we’re safe with your family, but I don’t wish to endanger them, not after what happened to my own family. I’ll heal soon, and I’ll kill every last one of those Persians with you, and they won’t even catch a glimpse of Chara. I won’t let them.”

Kassandra looked past her, and Daphnae knew the alpha was looking at their pup. Then Kassandra turned back to her, and with a tone that matched hers, the alpha said, “I understand, Daphnae. Can I go to Chara now?”

Daphnae nodded, but Kassandra didn’t move. She realized again that her hand was still on the alpha’s chest, and that there was very little space between them.

How good Kassandra smelled.

How good it would be to kiss her.

Before a different kind of tension came up between them, Daphnae dropped her hand and sent her alpha off with a quiet, “Go.”

* * *

At Potidaia’s docks, two men greeted them. Daphnae easily identified Alexios even before she could catch his scent, as he was the obvious warrior between the two, and that Ikaros was perched on his shoulder. The other man, short and slight, Daphnae assumed was Darius’ son. Darius himself was nowhere to be seen, not unusual given what Kassandra had said about the man.

Alexios ran to them like a man charging into battle, and with a cry of, “Kassandra!” he yanked his sister into a crushing embrace. Kassandra, too taken aback, didn’t even return the gesture before she was pulling Alexios back to look at him.

“Alexios, what’s gotten into you?” she asked, and the answer she received was another hug.

“He’s been so worried about you,” Natakas explained for the emotional male alpha. “Ikaros showing up only made it worse.”

Circling above them, Ikaros let out a displeased squawk from being rudely launched off Alexios’ shoulder during his sprint. With a look from Kassandra, the eagle drifted to the Adrestia, no doubt to keep Chara company. They had left their pup with Barnabas in case of an ambush at the docks.

“I’m fine, Alexios,” Kassandra assured her brother, patting his back and waiting until he was the one to pull back from the embrace.

Alexios looked around, as if just noticing that Kassandra hadn’t been alone. He bowed his head in obvious shame. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I just… even with Ikaros, I was so sure you were injured, gravely. I felt such pain.”

“What are you talking about?” Kassandra asked, reaching for her brother, but she was stopped by Natakas, who touched her arm.

“This is not the best place for this conversation, Kassandra, or any,” he said, gesturing at the notably high security at the docks, as well as large number of Spartan ships patrolling the seas. “Alexios is not wounded, at least not physically, and my father and I have not involved him in any way.”

“Tell me later, then,” Kassandra told Alexios, “in Sparta. Get on the Adrestia. You’re going home.”

“He can’t,” Natakas insisted, squeezing Kassandra’s arm. “They’re watching, Kassandra. The Order won’t dare strike you out in the open here in Makedonia, but the moment the Adrestia leaves Spartan waters, they will chase Alexios all over the Aegean. It’s too big a risk for him, your crew, and the rest of your family.”

Kassandra growled in frustration, making Natakas flinch but not let go of her arm. “To your father, then, Natakas. Daphnae.”

Daphnae heard her name called but she didn’t react, her eyes fixed on the foreign hand clutching at Kassandra. Omega, she could smell it now. Natakas was an omega, and he had his hand on her alpha, who was not pushing him away.

“Daphnae?” Kassandra called again, going to her and finally slipping free of the male omega’s grasp. “Are you all right?” the alpha asked, and Daphnae couldn’t help herself, she touched Kassandra’s arm, exactly where Natakas’ hand had been.

“Yes, Kassandra, I’m all right,” she said, pleased with how the alpha - her alpha, hers - reacted to the simple touch: amber eyes nearly black, breath hitching, body tensing in the right places. “Do you want to get Chara with me?” It wasn’t an offer she originally intended to make, but she also didn’t expect she had to defend her territory.

_Kassandra isn’t your mate,_ a small, rational part of her mind said.

_But she should be,_ something raw, something primal roared. _She should be._

Daphnae led the way back to the Adrestia, knowing Kassandra was following her.

_Mine. My alpha._

They had to kill all those Persians, and soon. If Natakas touching Kassandra’s arm had this much of an effect on her, Daphnae didn’t know what she’d do if he tried something bolder.

She could kill him, or mate Kassandra.

Or both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I decided to go with Nutsuckass instead of Neema. I think it was a good choice. Yes, I’m fucking salty.
> 
> I need to level up my other save before the 2nd episode comes out, so the next update may be a while. I do want to get the whole thing done before that trash heap of an episode is released, so hopefully not too long a wait.
> 
> Oh, and just a heads up, I'm going to be changing this pseud's name.
> 
> As always, I’m so grateful to everyone giving this fic love, especially the comments! Thank you. Seriously. I was actually surprised how well-received the last chapter was. I really thought it was too short, so I wanted to make up for that with this one.
> 
> Happy Holidays!


	5. Kinship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve now realized that this story is slow-paced and I should stop promising it will pick up.
> 
> I checked the Assassin’s Creed wiki a couple of days ago and it looks like they changed when the DLC took place. It used to be 412 BC but now it’s 422 BC, which puts it around the same time the main story ended. I’m sticking with what I started with, though, because this AU is built around the Order of the Ancients showing up years after main story ended.

_“Leave, Eagle Bearer. There’s nothing for you to do. Now. Now!”_

_“Nothing-- Daphnae is dying, Xanthe! Daphnae is dying, and you’re all just standing there! I’m taking her to a doctor. Get the fuck out of the way before I make you.”_

_“No, Eagle Bearer. This doesn’t concern you. We’ll take care of Daphnae.”_

_“I’m not going anywhere without her!”_

_“The longer you stay, the more she suffers. Leave, or we’ll loose the wolves and bears on you.”_

_“You think your beasts will stop me? I will paint this temple red with their blood and yours. I’ll cut through Artemis herself if that’s what it takes! I am not losing Daphnae!”_

_The threat, the conviction behind it, the fear, sent Daphnae surging forward and reaching for Kassandra. The move proved reckless and dangerous, the large axe blade buried halfway into her side sinking even deeper. Her attempt to say, “Stop,” came out as an anguished cry instead, but it was more than enough to get the attention of her alpha and her sisters._

_“Daphnae!”_

_“Daphnae!”_

_At once, her sisters were at her side, Korrine catching her before she crumpled back on the ground and the others holding her down, keeping her still. Xanthe, an alpha herself, remained in a futile attempt to keep Kassandra at bay, but with a snarl that had their wolves and bears cowering, the superior alpha pushed her way through._

_“Let her stay,” Daphnae told her sisters, her words coming out in pained gasps._

_“But Daphnae,” Korrine tried to protest, but had no fight when Kassandra came upon them._

_The alpha was overtaken by instinct, the need to protect and save the life of the omega she held dear, and to turn her away was to ensure their own deaths. Any alpha so desperate and afraid was dangerous, the Eagle Bearer all the more so._

_“Daphnae, we need to get you to a doctor.” Kassandra was pleading with her, and that the alpha wasn’t too proud to do it surprised her sisters. “Please, Daphnae. I can’t lose you. Not you, too. Please.”_

_“Just stay with her, Eagle Bearer. There’s no time to explain,” Korrine said, letting the alpha take her place. “We’re going to pull the blade out. Give her something to bite down on.”_

_Kassandra stared at her wound, a fatal blow she had taken in place of Alena, who would have surely perished. With a trembling hand, Daphnae drew her alpha close. She knew what Kassandra was thinking, what the alpha wanted to say._

_She could bleed out. She could die well before that._

_Thankfully, Kassandra understood her silent plea to not argue. Instead, the alpha frantically searched for something she could bite down on, as Korrine had instructed. Finding nothing within reach, Kassandra tore off her gauntlet and offered her forearm._

_Xanthe gave Daphnae no time to refuse, wrenching the blade off in one swift yank. Daphnae roared in pain and bit down hard on Kassandra’s arm, her sharp teeth sinking deep, breaking skin, reaching bone. Korrine held closed the now gaping, bleeding wound, the rest of her sisters continuing to hold her down while she thrashed and writhed._

_All of this, Kassandra watched, tortured by helplessness, the alpha begging, “Stay with me, please,” and then Daphnae finally went still._

_Even with all the blood, Daphnae knew Kassandra could see it, her body putting itself back together at an alarming, impossible speed until the mortal wound was nothing more than a gash that needed suturing. Then Daphnae pulled her fangs free from Kassandra’s arm, and the alpha’s body repaired the worst of the damage, leaving only jagged cuts and deep punctures that needed tending but were not life-threatening._

_As Daphnae succumbed to exhaustion, she met Kassandra’s gaze, and in her alpha’s eyes she saw shock, disbelief, and then relief, wonder._

_Kinship._

_We’re the same, those amber eyes said. We’re the same._

* * *

_Later, when Daphnae awoke, Kassandra was still there, waiting outside the temple under the watch of her sisters. Korrine had seen to her wound, having been a physician’s assistant before she joined the Daughters of Artemis. Alena hadn’t left her side, the young huntress burdened by guilt. It took some effort to send her off, even more than it took to convince Xanthe, but, eventually, they were alone, just her and Kassandra._

_The alpha didn’t even wait for her sisters to be out of sight before sweeping her into an embrace. It was just as well, since her sisters would not be far despite agreeing to give them privacy. She fell into her alpha’s arms, welcoming the warmth and affection, the comforting scent. The way Kassandra held her, tenderly but with desperation, how the alpha sought her neck despite how uncomfortable it was with their height difference, Daphnae feared the worst._

_“Is your mother…” Daphnae couldn’t bring herself to finish the question. Kassandra had been searching for her mother for so long, and for the alpha’s journey to end so terribly broke her heart._

_Kassandra inhaled shakily against her neck, as if needing her scent, a reminder that she was here in the alpha’s arms, to have the strength to speak. “No,” the alpha whimpered, and Daphnae could feel tears wet her neck. Then Kassandra said the one thing that broke her heart even more: “Phoibe.”_

_Phoibe. The young Kephallonian girl Kassandra spoke of with a fatherly fondness. The determined girl who would have followed Kassandra to the ends of the earth if she could, and almost did, smuggling herself to Athens and then later finding her way to Korinthia. The sweet orphan girl who gave Kassandra her only prized possession, an eagle carving made by her mother, so the alpha would never feel lonely._

_Daphnae didn’t ask how or why. She knew. So she held Kassandra, and she let her alpha cry._

* * *

_“You can’t stay here anymore, Daphnae,” Kassandra was telling her the following morning. The alpha didn’t want to leave but she had to. She still had to find her mother, after all. “The Cult knows about you, what you mean to me. I’m the reason you’re-- that you almost…” Kassandra dared not finish the sentence, the alpha instead caressing her injured side. “I didn’t even know that they were coming after you. I just had to see you after Phoibe… I could have lost you without knowing it.”_

_Daphnae responded first with a kiss, reminding her alpha she was there. “My sisters saw them coming, Kassandra. We were ready. We were prepared. We were finishing them off when you arrived. They may be of the Cult, but they still fought like Followers of Ares. No one got hurt--”_

_“You got hurt, Daphnae,” the alpha interrupted her, again touching her side._

_“Better me than Alena,” she reasoned, covering Kassandra’s hand with her own. “You saw why. You understand.” With her other hand, she touched the alpha’s forearm, where she had bitten down. It was healing, and fast, like her own injury._

_“Why didn’t you tell me?” Kassandra asked, the hurt in her alpha’s voice cutting deeper than the axe that nearly ended her life._

_“I am a Daughter of Artemis before anything else, Kassandra,” she said, and in a whisper, she added, “I never wanted to be anything else.”_

_“But you are more, Daphnae. You’re like me.” This time, it was Kassandra keeping her chin up, holding her gaze. “What is it you’re afraid of?”_

_Daphnae closed her eyes, for it was the only way to avoid those beautiful amber eyes, the warmth in them, the love. “To feel alone,” she finally admitted, feeling her strength leave her along with the words she dared not speak before. She leaned into her alpha, and immediately, strong arms wrapped around her, holding her together._

_“Can I ask you to come with me?” Kassandra whispered against her neck. Seeking permission to ask a question. How charming it was. How sweet._

_Daphnae had to smile, even if sadly. Her alpha already knew the answer, but still she said it, because they both needed to hear it. “No more than I can ask you to stay.”_

* * *

Night had fallen by the time they made it to the ruins under Rock Arch that Darius used as a hideout. Though it was a considerable trek from Potidaia, it took them much longer than it should have since they had to follow Natakas’ elaborate route that he insisted was a necessity to keep the Order off their trail.

_Ridiculous,_ Daphnae thought the whole trip, at least when she wasn’t glaring at the male omega whenever he looked over his shoulder to steal a glance at Kassandra, whereupon ‘ridiculous’ became, _take your eyes off my alpha before I rip them out and make you swallow them._

Thankfully, Kassandra had been far too distracted with Chara to notice the silent omega war raging over her. The pup had her father’s full attention despite not saying a word.

No talking had been another of Natakas’ instructions, and this one, Daphnae agreed with and welcomed, since it meant Natakas couldn’t talk to Kassandra and Daphnae, in turn, didn’t have to tear his throat out in front of their pup. She did notice the unamused looks Alexios was giving her and the male omega, but he tired of them eventually, choosing instead to patiently guide Kassandra along, since the alpha was too smitten with the pup in her arms to focus on where they were going.

“So you’ve returned, Eagle Bearer,” Darius said, the sarcastic remark his idea of greeting Kassandra. Daphnae noticed the man glance at her next, his eyes narrowing when he saw her injuries. “Seems you were in as much of a hurry as when you left.” He was looking at Chara now, his face wrinkling in severe disapproval.

“Say one thing you shouldn’t in this pup’s presence, Darius, and I will finish what I started when we first met,” Kassandra replied, the severity of the threat hidden from Chara with the calm, almost friendly voice the alpha spoke with. Daphnae found the protective, fatherly display unfairly attractive, made even more so with how easily her alpha was cradling their pup in one arm.

Darius backed off, the old man shaking his head. He seemed like a proud man, an arrogant man, but not a stupid one. “You really do lack foresight, Eagle Bearer,” he grumbled, and when he glanced at Daphnae again, she bared her fangs. It surprised him, so much that he couldn’t hide his reaction. He shook his head again instead, and then made his way into the ruins.

* * *

The hideout, as expected, provided little in the way of comfort and privacy. Daughters of Artemis were no strangers to such conditions. They, in fact, thrived on it, a way of life they preferred to the big cities most of the Greek world chose to shutter themselves in. Still, Daphnae was concerned. The Daughters had their rules and tradition for good reason, to prevent circumstances like the one she faced now: sharing the same, small space with an alpha she couldn’t claim and a male omega who dared to.

_For my sisters,_ she told herself, hoping her love for them and the need to do right by their memory could quiet the angry howl of her omega instincts. She would see them avenged in spite of her nature. She needed Darius’ help to hunt these Persians, and it would do no good if she were to drench the ruin’s grounds with his son’s blood.

“Daphnae.”

Daphnae looked up, finding herself facing the source of her dilemma. What a beautiful sight it was. Her alpha seemed no less affected, amber eyes almost black once their gazes met, but their pup, held between them, proved effectively sobering to them both.

“We need to speak with Darius about what’s been going on in Makedonia There’s a lower level in the ruins. I think it’s better if Chara stayed there rather than here,” Kassandra said, and Daphnae agreed. Their pup had seen enough horrors. There was no need to expose her to more. “I’ll go with her,” the alpha decided before Daphnae could even think of arguing about it. “Darius and I can have our own discussion later.”

_Good alpha,_ crooned something that was more a feeling than a voice. _Good mate._

“There’s no need for that, Kassandra,” came the unwelcomed interruption in the form of a deprived male omega with no good sense. Like a plague, he squeezed his way through, smiling at Kassandra like he was ready to bend over for the alpha at a moment’s notice. “I can watch your pup. I already know what my father has to say, and I’m great with pups.”

* * *

When Natakas began to reach for Chara, Kassandra wondered if the man did, indeed, have a death wish, or if he was simply that oblivious to Daphnae’s fury. The omega was seething, territorial over her and their pup, and while Kassandra would love nothing more than for Daphnae to lay claim on her, it probably shouldn’t come at the cost of Natakas’ life.

“That’s not up to me, Natakas,” she told the eager male omega. “It’s for Daphnae to decide.” Holding their pup closer, Kassandra stepped back so she was standing behind Daphnae, both to appease the agitated omega and to make clear to Natakas she meant what she said.

The silence that followed stretched on, so long that Darius felt the need to stand by Natakas, to protect him from the omega the old man was acknowledging a threat.

“Watch Chara, please, Kassandra,” Daphnae finally said, and though her eyes were steely as kept her gaze trained on the father and son, the omega’s voice was gentle, meant for Chara and perhaps - before Kassandra could stop the thought - for her. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know later.”

Kassandra nodded, and then let Daphnae see Chara off with a kiss on the head and a nuzzle. “With me, Alexios,” she said to her brother, who went ahead to the level below with a torch in hand. The alpha was about to follow her brother when she was stopped, briefly, by Daphnae, the omega touching her arm. Daphnae said nothing, only gave her arm a squeeze before sending her off.

* * *

When they reached the lower level of the ruins, Chara finally spoke, and it was in a whisper.

“Pater, is it okay to talk now?”

Kassandra smiled, delighted to hear her pup’s voice. “It’s okay now, Chara. Is that why you’ve been so quiet?”

“That funny-smelling man said to be quiet,” Chara explained, still whispering.

Alexios snorted. “He smells funny because he wants your pater’s dick.”

Kassandra rolled her eyes but didn’t stop her brother. Alexios could have his fun. It was nice to see him in a good mood after how strange he acted at the docks, even nicer to see him making an effort to talk to Chara.

“Is that why Mater doesn’t like him?” her pup asked, blinking curiously at her uncle.

“That is exactly why your mater doesn’t like him,” Alexios was more than happy to point out.

“Because she wants Pater’s dick to herself?”

Alexios’ answering laugh was so loud it was obnoxious. “If even the pup thinks so, then it must be true! And you’re a very smart pup, aren’t you, Chara?”

Chara giggled, enjoying the attention and praise. “I am!”

“Of course she is,” Kassandra agreed, ruffling her pup’s hair. “But I’m sure there’s better things to talk about than your pater’s dick, isn’t that right, pup?” Fun was fine if it was at her expense, but not Daphnae’s. She hoped Alexios took the hint and she wouldn’t have to ruin the moment between uncle and pup.

“That is true,” Alexios replied in a solemn tone far too exaggerated to mean it. “Your pater hasn’t used her dick in years, you know. It probably doesn’t even work anymore.”

At which point, Kassandra’s alpha ego decided Alexios has had enough fun.

She was shoving her cackling brother before she realized it, punctuating it with an emphatic bark of, “You little shit!” that only made her own pup join in on the laughter.

“It’s okay, Pater,” Chara cooed sweetly a moment later, little arms going around her neck for a hug. “I’m sure Uncle Alexios was just joking.”

Kassandra saw it on Alexios’ face then, how it touched him to be called Uncle. He walked over to them, smiling fondly at Chara, and gently placed his hand on her head. “You’re right, pup. I was just teasing your pater. Now, I’m going to light these braziers, and then I’ll you about the time your pater stuck a man’s eye up a goat’s ass.”

“Pater did what?”

“Fake eye. Fake! You bastard, Alexios, you haven’t even started and you’re already telling it wrong!”

* * *

One long, colorfully embellished tale later, which Kassandra and Alexios spent trading verbal jabs - and actual ones - and Chara giggling at them over it, the pup yawned, the long day taking its toll on her small body.

“Sleep if you’re tired, Chara. I’m sure your mater will be done soon,” Kassandra told her pup.

“Okay, Pater,” Chara said through another yawn. “Will you tell me more stories about Pater tomorrow, Uncle Alexios?”

Alexios, sitting next to Chara, smiled and ruffled the pup’s hair.

“Rest up and I will, pup.”

“And stories about you, too?”

Alexios’ smile faltered, but he hid it with a chuckle. “My life isn’t as interesting and exciting as your pater’s. You know what I was doing before I decided to come here? I was gardening. With my mater. See? Nothing like your pater’s adventures.”

“I still wanna hear,” Chara sleepily insisted, and Alexios was surprised then when the pup hugged him. “Promise?”

Alexios was about to respond when he was surprised again, this time by Chara purring for him. “Well.” He cleared his throat, pride coming back to his voice. “I did trip Stentor in front of this woman he’s been trying to impress. Sent him right into the mud with the pigs. I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow, but only if you get some sleep now.”

Chara smiled and nodded, and then snuggled back to Kassandra’s side. Kassandra drew her pup to her lap, and Chara, yawning again, quickly found a comfortable position and began to drift off, lulled by her father’s purring.

Once Chara’s breathing slowed and evened out, Kassandra closed her eyes.

“You’re summoning Ikaros,” Alexios noticed, speaking quietly “Why?”

“To watch Chara in her dreams.” Kassandra said, also keeping her voice down. She opened her eyes, and, seeing the look on Alexios’ face, she knew she didn’t need to explain further.

“So Ikaros helps her? Good.” Alexios sounded genuine.

Ikaros arrived, and just in time, since Chara began to whimper. The pup immediately calmed in the eagle’s presence. Alexios rewarded Ikaros with a piece of dried meat, which the eagle happily gulped down.

“A sweet thing, your pup,” he said. “It would be a shame for that to be ruined.”

Kassandra nodded, gazing lovingly at her sleeping pup. She had been wanting to hold Chara like this since she heard her pup cry the night before. It was impossible to sleep after that, even when she left Ikaros with Daphnae and Chara. She needed this, to be assured that her pup wasn’t suffering, to have her safe in her arms.

“Is Chara all right? I saw Ikaros.”

At the sound of Daphnae’s voice, Alexios’ smile fell, and he was a scowling by the time the omega approached them. He stood and left, bumping into Daphnae when he passed her.

“Alexios!” Kassandra hissed, but her brother kept walking. There was an urge - an alpha need - to chase Alexios down, to drag him back to Daphnae and make him apologize to the omega. She would have done just that were it not for the sleeping pup on her lap.

“You don’t have to do that, Kassandra,” Daphnae said, touching where her neck and her shoulder met, where a mate mark would be. The touch, combined with the omega’s soothing scent, eased Kassandra’s nerves, filling her with a sense of calm and belonging she hadn’t felt in years.

“I’m sorry--” she started to say, the rest of her words lost in a gasp when Daphnae squeezed with her hand.

“You don’t have to do that, either,” the omega said. “If Alexios didn’t despise me, then he’s no brother of yours. I know what I’ve done.”

_And I don’t love you any less,_ Kassandra wanted to say, but she didn’t dare.

“Chara is fine,” she told the omega. Daphnae was here for Chara, after all. “She just fell asleep, and Ikaros was nearby. Do you need to go back up there?”

“No, we were just about done when Ikaros showed up.” Daphnae’s hand fell away, and Kassandra fought not to chase after it, to beg for the closeness just a little longer. “While you were gone, Darius discovered that Akantha was part of the Order, one of the Ancients. He dealt with her, quietly. Her husband believes her to be missing.”

“Unbelievable,” Kassandra muttered. She was thankful to have something immediate and pressing to focus on, but the news was unsettling all the same.

“You knew her,” Daphnae guessed correctly.

“Good friends with my mater. Together they would nag me, ceaselessly, to take part in the breeding ceremonies.” Spartan alphas and omegas belonged to Sparta, their purpose to give Sparta strong alpha soldiers and fertile omega mothers. It was Kassandra’s duty as a Spartan alpha, as the grandchild of Leonidas, as the legendary Eagle Bearer, to sire litters upon litters of pups. “She’s even offered her own daughter to me,” she said of Akantha, and instinctively held Chara closer. “Had I accepted, she would have had her own grandchildren hunted? And the Order thinks we’re the monsters?”

She saw the jealousy flash in Daphnae’s green eyes, the possessiveness. Kassandra hadn’t intended that, not ignorant of how Natakas’ open interest in her affected Daphnae. Shamefully, she enjoyed the attention, the touches meant to mark, to show claim.

“I’m sorry,” Daphnae was saying before she could. “The way I’ve been acting, I shouldn’t…” The omega sighed, and then shook her head. “There are more important things.” Daphnae then sat next to her, reaching over and caressing Chara’s cheek. It silenced any protest Kassandra had. Daphnae was right.

“What else has Darius told you?” she asked, to business like the omega wanted. “Akantha’s disappearance explains the absurd amount of patrols in Makedonia. Her husband Teutamos commands the Spartan troops in this region. He must be having them lift every stone in search of her.”

“Making it harder for Darius to gather information on the other Ancients. He told me about Konon.” A Follower of Ares, from whom Kassandra found the scroll that revealed Chara and the attack on Chios. “He was more devoted to the Followers than the Order, otherwise he wouldn’t have written that scroll you found.” In it, Konon had requested for the Huntsman to bring Daphnae and Chara to Makedonia alive so he could sacrifice them to Ares along with Kassandra. “I would call that a fortunate thing, had my sisters also survived.”

The way Daphnae looked at Chara, like the pup was the only thing holding the omega together, it made Kassandra wish she could do more, that Daphnae would let her do more. “The Order won’t take another Daughter, Daphnae. We’ll make sure of it.”

The omega nodded, looking at their pup a moment longer before turning back to her. There was love in those green eyes, and Kassandra looked away, knowing it wasn’t for her. She thought that Daphnae frowned, but it was probably her imagination.

“Did Darius find anything else?” she asked.

“A location, a lion’s den at Mount Athos. I know it. A pride of white lions.”

“A whole pride? One white lion alone is rare. It must be a test of strength.”

“I thought the same. I told Darius to leave it to me. The Order may know my face, but I know Makedonia. They won’t see me, and those lions don’t have to die.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Kassandra knew Daphnae didn’t need her. By tomorrow, the omega would have fully recovered from her wounds, and even if not, she had a feeling Daphnae had no intentions of fighting the lions.

“I plan to leave early.” Daphnae looked away, unusual for the proud omega. “I was hoping you’d stay with Chara again. I wouldn’t want her to wake up with both of us gone.”

“Here? You want me to stay here with you and Chara tonight?” Kassandra blurted, almost waking up their pup because she forgot to control her voice.

“I understand if it’s too much to ask--”

“No,” she quickly cut the omega off. “No,” she said again, softy. “I’ll stay. Do you want to sleep down here?”

“Yes,” Daphnae replied, the omega’s eyes narrowing when she glanced at the stairs. “I much prefer how it smells down here.”

Briefly, Kassandra wondered if Natakas was still alive, or Darius, for that matter.

“I’ll get the supplies we brought from the ship,” she said, knowing better than to ask the omega to go back up there. Carefully, she handed Chara over to Daphnae, the pup squirming at first but relaxing when she scented her mother.

As Kassandra hurried up the stairs, she knew she didn’t imagine it. Daphnae smiled at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I typed out, “You think your beasts will stop me?” Google Docs suggested, “You think your breasts will stop me?” and I’m still laughing about it.
> 
> As always, thank you for giving this fic love. This chapter kicked my ass and rereading the comments got me through. Happy New Year!


	6. The Watcher

Daphnae opened her eyes, roused by a primal call. There was an itch at the tips of her fingers, a need to mark. A tingle under her fangs, an urge to bite. Kassandra’s scent was everywhere, enclosing her, setting a fire at the pit of her belly, on her tongue with every deep, greedy breath she took.

_More._ She needed to touch, to feel.

Firm muscle jumped under one of her palms, the beats of a racing heart under the other. Her nails grazed the ridges of the scar there. Then the world spun, and she fell on muscled arms. From above, amber eyes watched her, and Daphnae saw nothing but an alpha in those eyes, starved like her.

_Yes._

_Yes, yes, yes._

Hands with the strength to move the world roamed her body with a possessive frenzy. Teeth and tongue followed, no less ravenous. Daphnae shivered, a yielding, willing mess beneath the rippling muscles and wild power on top of her.

Their clothes were hindering, maddening. Daphnae’s body clamored for freedom, to be flushed bare against her alpha’s, to have Kassandra inside her, where she belonged.

_Can’t wait. Won’t. Need it. Need it now._

Her alpha, so hard, so big even through the cursed barriers, felt so good, too good. Daphnae couldn’t stop her hips any more than she could stop breathing, and Kassandra, her alpha, her perfect alpha, let her be selfish.

All for her: the powerful growl that seeped into her bones, the hot breath on her neck where a mate mark should be, proud declarations to her omega instincts that she was about to come for an alpha so deserving, so strong, and hers. All hers.

_Mine._ Daphnae’s nails dug into Kassandra’s shoulders, and then down her alpha’s sculpted back. _Mine._ She nuzzled Kassandra’s neck, inhaling her alpha’s scent and baring her fangs. _Mine._

“Daphnae, my father says--”

Kassandra growled again, but unlike the one before, this growl was angry, ferocious. The cause of it, a new scent, unpleasant, intrusive, had Daphnae also growling before she even saw the fool who dared to come between an alpha and omega about to mate.

Natakas stood in the middle of the stairs, eyes wide, frozen in fear. He knew. He had walked into a lion’s den, and there was no telling if he would leave with his life.

* * *

How satisfying would it be to see Natakas torn apart by the very alpha he had been trying to pry from her, but Daphnae couldn’t let it happen. His jarring presence, his offending scent, it woke her up to a world that was more than Kassandra and the alpha’s welcomed weight on top of her. To reality and inhibitions. To the mistake they almost made, and wouldn’t have been able to undo.

To Chara, who was nowhere to be found.

Quickly, she pulled Kassandra down, her alpha still furious, still feral. It was risky to have Kassandra’s fangs so close to her neck, but Daphnae knew her scent would calm her alpha, and that was where her scent was strongest. Kassandra resisted at first, tried to break free, but soon, her alpha stilled, drawn to her neck.

“Where is Chara?” Daphnae asked Natakas, and their pup’s name brought the alpha back to herself.

“Chara? Where is she, Natakas? Did something happen to her?” Kassandra demanded, the alpha’s worry for their pup actually making her sound even more dangerous.

Natakas continued to stare, too terrified to speak. Kassandra snarled, but before her alpha could move, Alexios appeared, holding hands with their beautiful little girl.

“Relax before you shit yourself.” Alexios grunted at Natakas, giving the male omega a shove that sent him stumbling.

“Mater! Pater!” Chara squealed happily, oblivious to the mating that almost happened and the murder that would have followed it. Their pup ran to them, presenting a stick with skewered pieces of cooked fish and boar meat. “Uncle Alexios took me fishing! And then we saw a white boar on the way back, so we hunted it!”

“That’s wonderful, little bird,” Daphnae said, grateful when Kassandra sat up so she could hug Chara, who pulled her father into it as well. “But why didn’t you wake us?”

“You and Pater looked so happy sleeping, so I let you sleep!” Chara smiled, having the look of a pup who knew she did the right thing. “And also, Uncle Alexios was already up, and Ikaros, too. Do you want to taste, Mater?” she asked, holding up the stick. “It’s good! Uncle Alexios made it! How about you, Pater? You look really hungry.”

Kassandra chuckled. Her alpha was hurting, Daphnae could see it, but for Chara, it seemed, Kassandra could laugh and smile. “Do I, now? Then maybe I’ll have myself a sweet little pup for dessert.”

“No!” Chara giggled, fleeing from her father outstretched hands. “Meal first, Pater, then dessert!”

“We’ll get your parents their own share, pup,” Alexios said, approaching them and ruffling Chara’s hair. “You want to help me cook? I’ll show you how I mixed the spices.”

“Yes!” Chara squealed, grabbing Alexios’ hand with both of her tiny ones. “Let’s go, Uncle! Let’s cook right now!”

Alexios laughed and let the little pup pull him along. On the way up the stairs, he grabbed Natakas by the back of the shirt, dragging the male omega up with them. Then they were gone, and Daphnae and Kassandra were alone once more.

Daphnae didn’t know what to say. An apology felt like one too many already. Then, eventually, she found the words, and they didn’t help, but they were true.

“I don’t mean to keep hurting you, Kassandra.”

Her alpha’s response, what should have brought her comfort, only broke her heart all the more.

“I know.”

* * *

“I almost killed your son.”

“I’ve heard.”

Kassandra seethed. She wasn’t in the mood for Darius and his flippant attitude. It had been some time since Daphnae left for Mount Athos. The alpha had eaten since, a big meal courtesy of a very proud pup who had been over enthusiastic with the spices, but Kassandra still loved it. Then Daphnae had to go, and the alpha was on edge from the separation.

Daphnae’s scent was still all over her, the smell of the omega’s arousal stuck in her head. Kassandra’s body and her alpha instincts howled furiously for Daphnae.

She had no patience to spare for Darius.

Grabbing the old man by his shirt, Kassandra yanked him close with an effortless pull. “I. Almost. Killed. Your. Son,” she repeated, slowly, clearly. “He told you what he smelled, and you still sent him to us.”

“Your brother followed him, didn’t he? And, from what I heard, Daphnae had no trouble handling you. I take it you’ve apologized to Natakas.”

“As much as he let me. He’s still afraid of me.”

“I can’t quite blame him. You are currently strangling his father.”

Kassandra scoffed, but then she realized that her grip had somehow moved to Darius’ neck and that she now held him up in the air. She released him, but she continued to scowl.

“Was that some kind of test, then?” she demanded. “If it was, I failed. I really would have killed Natakas if Daphnae didn’t stop me.” As soon as she said it, she knew. “You were testing Daphnae.”

“I may be a beta and an old man, but I know how Daphnae feels about my son. I don’t need a wolf’s sense of smell to know my son is attracted to you and what that does to her. I needed to see that she can rise above her instincts. I had a feeling she was more than capable. She does lead the Daughters of Artemis, after all, and leading takes more reason than gut.”

“And what does this test of yours say about me?”

“That it’s a good thing Daphnae is here because she can control you.”

Kassandra snorted. “Now you approve that she’s here?”

“I thought she would be another problem to worry about with those injuries of hers,” Darius said with a shrug that tempted Kassandra to punch him. “But it seems she’s more like you than the rest of your kind out there. Her wounds have completely healed, and now we have a master archer on our side, one who knows Makedonia’s forests more than the locals themselves.”

“So, what then, Daphnae passed your test, and now she’s won your trust?”

“No,” Darius replied, managing to sound arrogant and humble at the same time. “I didn’t follow her to Mount Athos because she would know. You alphas and omegas have hearing like cats, and she’s a trained huntress. I barely caught you by surprise. Her? No chance. From how far away it’d be, she’d take me for an enemy and I’d have an arrow between my eyes by now.”

“You would,” Kassandra agreed. She knew how keen an eye Daphnae had. “Does that mean you trust me less now?”

“There was none for you lose, Eagle Bearer.”

“I’ve killed an Ancient, and Daphnae is following the trail of another. The Order is hunting us, not you. They burned Daphnae’s home, killed her sisters, all in front of our pup, who is plagued by awful dreams. What more do you need, Darius? What are you not telling me?”

“I tell you things you need to know, Eagle Bearer. That should suffice.” Darius turned around to dismiss her, but Kassandra grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around. “You weren’t so concerned about trust before,” he taunted. “Why now?”

“My family is here, Darius!” she snarled with the fury of an alpha, the fury of a father. “My daughter, my only child. If your secrets threaten her safety, if they are what drove you to risk Natakas, then I should kill you now before you get a chance to gamble my pup’s life. What good are you, anyway, if you put your own child in danger?”

“That question, Eagle Bearer, is one you should be asking yourself,” Darius said, barely, almost cut off when Kassandra closed her hand around his throat.

It would be so easy to break his neck. Just a little pressure, a little twist. Daphnae wasn’t here to stop her.

Daphnae wasn’t here. Was this another test?

Kassandra struck the wall behind Darius, the stone splitting and crumbling, and then she let him go.

“I am nothing like you, Darius,” she growled, and before he could say another word, she left.

* * *

Daphnae returned, Kassandra catching the omega’s scent first before seeing her. Daphnae entered the ruins, not a single arrow missing from her quiver.

“Where’s Chara?” Daphnae asked, pulling down her hood, and Kassandra was winded by the combination of the beautiful sight, the sweet scent, and the omega’s maternal instincts. “Kassandra?”

“I just left her with Alexios, at the lower level,” Kassandra finally answered. _Stop it, idiot,_ she told herself. The last time she had seen Daphnae wearing that particular outfit, the omega had challenged her to mortal combat. It shouldn’t be so criminally arousing. “Did you find the seal?” she asked, needing something else to focus on besides Daphnae’s smell, face, and body.

“I did.”

“The lions?”

“No trouble, and they’re unharmed.” Daphnae then approached Darius. Kassandra hadn’t noticed him when she came up, all her senses fixed on the omega. “Here’s the seal,” Daphnae said to Darius. “It was buried in the den, along with this note. It’s written in code. Can you read it?

Darius examined the seal first. “It’s the Order’s, that’s certain.” He looked at the note next, going over it several times. “Instructions for the next trial. Three bear pelts must be delivered to the blacksmith’s assistant in Amphipolis. There’s also a code phrase: ‘In the beginning, there was chaos, and we are the Order’.”

“Hunting for sport,” Daphnae spat, the omega looking disgusted. “It’s no wonder the bears here have been so agitated.”

“You can’t buy the pelts,” Darius warned. “The blacksmith in the city wouldn’t be the only merchant the Order is keeping an eye on. They would have marked all the bear pelts in the market.”

“The bears have to be hunted. We get it,” Kassandra snapped. “I’ll do it, Daphnae,” she said, her voice having none of the edge it had when she spoke to the old man.

“No. I’ll go with you,” Daphnae insisted. “It’ll be faster if we go together.”

It won’t. Kassandra could kill three bears in as many blinks, and Daphnae knew this.

“Fine, go together,” Darius grumbled. “Return here when you get the pelts. The Order know us. We need to send someone they don’t. We’ll discuss it when you get back.”

* * *

“Kassandra, why was there a hole in the wall?”

The alpha wasn’t surprised by the question. Daphnae was not some skittish omega who avoided confrontation. It was one of the things Kassandra loved about her.

“It was either the wall or Darius’ face,” the alpha said. “I don’t trust him, Daphnae. He knows too much about the Order. I saw his eyes when he looked at the coded message you found. He knew what it was at first glance. The rest was for show.”

“He told me he was the man who killed King Xerxes, but he didn’t admit that he was also the man who tried to kill Xerxes’ son twice.”

Kassandra had told Daphnae about Artaxerxes years ago. It amazed her that the omega still remembered, but she was beginning to think that Daphnae remembered everything she saw or heard in perfect detail.

“He claims that Xerxes and his father were puppets of the Order. It’s likely he thought Artaxerxes would also fall under the Order’s influence. His first attempt on Artaxerxes’ life failed. Artaxerxes was just a boy then, wasn’t he? So Darius has been running from the Order since.”

“He’s run so much that he somehow found his way back to Persia to make another attempt on Artaxerxes’ life.”

“You told me Artaxerxes is a good man, good enough to save him from that Persian assassin who came after him in Megaris. He sounds like the kind of man who would want nothing to do with the Order, yet Darius still wanted him dead. He either found proof of the Order, or he just wanted to be right.”

“I think the worst thing Artaxerxes had ever done was be born Xerxes’ son. When I met him, he was a blind beggar with nothing to lose. He had no reason to lie to me. But Darius, he’s very careful with the information he shares with us. He helps, but only to a point.”

“He helps because he needs it, Kassandra, and maybe he fears his secrets will cost him that. The Order doesn’t know he’s in Makedonia. They lured you here, but Darius followed. He sought you out. You may not have been the first of our kind whom he did.”

Kassandra growled. “If his lies hurt Chara, the Order and the Huntsman--”

“-- will be the least of his problems,” Daphnae finished with a growl of her own, and _by the gods,_ Kassandra thought, she loved this omega so much.

* * *

They continued to head north, where Daphnae said the bears had been driven due to the overaggressive hunting by Order aspirants. The omega loathed attacking the poor beasts in what was possibly their last safe haven in Makedonia, but they hadn’t seen a single bear along the way.

“Only three, and not one more,” Kassandra promised Daphnae.

The cave was in sight now. Though Ikaros wasn’t there to see for her, the alpha could smell the bears. They were in there, no doubt, and she felt Daphnae’s pain for the beasts. It also wasn’t lost on the alpha that what they were about to do was no less different than what the Order had done in Chios.

“Make it quick, please,” Daphnae implored, the omega touching her forearm before going on ahead.

Kassandra waited for Daphnae to find a suitable tree to perch on. The plan was to draw all the bears out, kill three fast, and then knock out the rest with paralyzing arrows. Admittedly, she felt a little blind without Ikaros. She did have Daphnae, though, and while this was the first time they would be fighting together, Kassandra had nothing but faith in the omega.

Seeing Daphnae’s signal, Kassandra approached the mouth of the cave, her spear drawn. She took a step forward, and then time slowed briefly, a flurry arrows heading towards her, fired from inside the cave. She ducked and rolled out of the way as soon as a spear struck where she had been.

Her assailant - a woman, a huntress - recovered quickly, pulling the spear free from the ground and swinging at her. Kassandra blocked the attack with her gauntlet, the impact snapping the spear blade from its shaft. With impressive speed, the huntress snatched the blade in the air and swung at her again, wielding the blade like a knife.

Kassandra caught the huntress’ arm, disarming her and making her drop the blade. “Are you a Daughter of Artemis?” she asked, grabbing her huntress’ other arm and pushing her against the cave wall. “I’m with Daphnae. Answer me. Are you a Daughter of Artemis?”

She had to be. Daphnae had many chances to kill the huntress but didn’t take one shot.

“She cannot be with you, Eagle Bearer.”

Kassandra snarled, very nearly breaking the huntress’ arms.

_She should be!_ the alpha wanted to roar for all the world, especially the Daughters of Artemis to hear. _She wants me. She loves me._

A hand touched her shoulder. The scent, the sudden calm she felt from it, Kassandra knew it was Daphnae. “Let her go, Kassandra,” the omega said.

Kassandra did as Daphnae asked, but not before ripping the bow and quiver off the huntress’ back and tossing them aside. She glanced inside the cave. Not even a glimpse of one bear.

Daphnae approached the huntress, the omega looking apprehensive. “Why are you here, Phratagouné? Did something happen in Lamia?”

“What?”

“Our sisters, Phratagouné. Our home in Malis. Are they safe? Is it whole?”

“Yes, to both,” the huntress said, and finally Daphnae relaxed, yanking the huntress into an embrace. “Daphnae, what’s going on? What are you doing here?”

Kassandra felt the huntress’ eyes on her then. _‘What are you doing here with the Eagle Bearer?’_ was the huntress’ actual question. Instead of answering, Daphnae led the huntress over to Kassandra. The huntress glared at her, something Kassandra decided to ignore for Daphnae’s sake.

“Kassandra, this is Phratagouné,” Daphnae said. “She leads the Daughters in Malis in my place when I’m not there.” The omega then took a breath, looking pained. “Phratagouné, I’m here with Kassandra because Chios was attacked. Only Chara and I survived, and that’s because of Kassandra.”

“No,” Phratagouné whispered, holding Daphnae’s hands with her own. “What happened, Daphnae? Tell me. Who did this?”

“Later, Phratagouné. I will tell you everything later, just know that Kassandra and I are hunting the monsters responsible. And to do that, we need three bear pelts.”

“Daphnae, I’m trying to protect these bears! They’re being hunted to the last one by the locals. Bad enough the Spartans are here, killing needlessly to prove their strength.” At that, the huntress shot Kassandra another glare. “There are cubs in there, Daphnae. There has to be another way.”

Daphnae sighed, and then gave the huntress’ hands a squeeze. “If there is, Phratagouné, I wouldn’t be here.”

Phratagouné resisted a moment longer, but eventually agreed with a nod. “All right, but there’s no need to kill. Two days ago, a hunting party chased a sloth of bears to the borders of Malis. We killed the men, but we were too late to save the bears. I have their pelts. I was going to offer them to Artemis when I returned to Lamia, but if it saves three bears who still live, I’ll give them to you.”

Relieved, Daphnae hugged Phratagouné. “Thank you, Phratagouné.”

* * *

By the time they reached Amphipolis, Daphnae had told Phratagouné everything. They took a discreet route to the city, making sure they weren’t seen together. Phratagouné was to take the blacksmith’s assistant and meet up with them at the large farm east of the city.

“Remember the phrase,” Daphnae instructed Phratagouné.

“I remember. ‘In the beginning, there was chaos, and we are the Order’.”

“Good. Here’s the seal, in case they look for it.”

Daphnae handed the seal to Phratagouné. The huntress then made her way into Amphipolis, the bear pelts on the saddle of a horse they took from a bear-hunting mercenary who longer had need of it.

“Darius won’t be happy we didn’t go back to Rock Arch,” Daphnae said, “even less when we bring Phratagouné there after this.”

Kassandra snorted. “He can pout all he wants. Phratagouné stays.”

“You trust her?”

“I trust you, Daphnae.”

Caught off guard by her answer, Daphnae was quiet for a moment, and then, eventually, the omega nodded, accepting it. “Phratagouné won’t be a problem. The law is that you and I have to duel. She won’t get in the way of that. We met again under unusual circumstances, but you saved my life, and Chara’s. That will mean something to our laws, and so much to Phratagouné and my sisters.”

“She may need some reminding. She’s been looking at me like I’m some rabid dog to put down,” Kassandra grumbled. The trip to Amphipolis had been less than enjoyable with Phratagouné going out of her way to put herself between them.

The only thing that stopped Kassandra from killing the meddlesome huntress was knowing how upset Daphnae would be. It also helped to see that the omega was equally compelled to stay close to her, and had even snapped at Phratagouné at some point during the trip.

“I’ll talk to Phratagouné,” Daphnae assured her. “Thank you. I know how easily you could have killed her in the cave.”

Kassandra frowned. “I may have, if you weren’t there. What almost happened this morning, Daphnae, I know we didn’t finish-- we didn’t even start, but I think it still did something. My anger, I can’t control it when you’re not around.”

Daphnae reached for her, but the omega stopped when she realized what she was doing. “I feel it, too, Kassandra. It’s very difficult to be away from you.” Daphnae caught herself again, clasping her hands together to keep from touching the alpha. “I feel such a… powerful pull to you. I can’t help but want to feel you, as you can see.”

Daphnae hadn’t left a mark. They weren’t mates, and that was the problem. As Kassandra and Daphnae, they knew that, but not as alpha and omega.

“I’m sure it’ll fade, in time,” Kassandra said.

“Yes...”

Was that disappointment in Daphnae’s voice?

_No._ That was the omega talking, not Daphnae.

* * *

Phratagouné returned shortly, bearing good news. The Ancient’s name was Echion, and the blacksmith’s assistant told Phratagouné that she was to meet him in the very farm that Daphnae and Kassandra had been waiting by.

Echion turned out to be nothing more than an old farmer, a thin man who couldn’t even stand straight anymore. When he headed for the farmhouse, he wasn’t flanked by Order soldiers in expensive Persian armor but instead by four field hands in ragged clothes.

It wasn’t what Daphnae was expecting.

“Don’t be fooled, Daphnae,” Kassandra said to her, the alpha sensing her hesitation. “I’ve met Cultists who looked just as feeble, and they were capable of such cruelty. They caused so much suffering. Remember what the Order has done. Remember.”

The fire. Her sisters.

Daphnae snarled. “Go,” she told her alpha.

Then Kassandra was gone, and when they next saw the alpha, she was already across the fields, pulling her spear free from the chest of one of the field hands and kicking him down. The next had his throat cut, and the last two stabbed through the head. Just like that, Echion was alone, defenseless.

Echion, skin and bones that lay on the fields he sowed, looked upon the god that loomed over him, and he laughed.

“The mighty Eagle Bearer, at last!” he declared in glee, his face splitting into a sinister smile when Daphnae and Phratagouné approached. “And her queen? How gracious.”

Kassandra picked the man up by his throat. “Eyes to me.” When he dared to look at Daphnae again, she closed her hand around his neck until he fixed his wide eyes back at her. “The Huntsman?” she asked.

Echion laughed, a choked sound, no less unsettling. “Watching, Eagle Bearer. Always watching,” the man said. “He sees through many eyes. He sees all of Makedonia.”

“Where is the Huntsman?” Kassandra asked again, the alpha’s question clearer, her patience thinner.

“I saw your queen this morning, Eagle Bearer.” At the mercy of an angry god, Echion smiled like a man eager to meet Hades. “I saw white lions, majestic, mighty like you, bow to her. I saw your brother take your daughter to the ruins under Rock Arch. Beautiful little girl, Eagle Bearer. She looks like her mother.”

Echion had talked enough, Daphnae decided, and so she let Kassandra crush the man’s throat slowly, and then she watched him squirm like the worm he was until he begged for death.


	7. Powerless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO, how about that 2nd episode, huh?
> 
> I’m compelled to say that I wrote the, “Stay. Please,” line before I played that shitpile DLC.

_It was seven years later when Daphnae saw Kassandra again. The alpha arrived in Chios with the pelts of the Kretan Bull, Kallisto the Bear, the Erymanthian Boar, and the Krokottas Hyena, collected over their time apart and kept in pristine condition._

_When presented to Daphnae, however, she cast the pelts aside, choosing instead to take Kassandra’s face in her hands and pulling her alpha down for a kiss that had the Eagle Bearer’s knees buckling._

_“Stay. Please,” were her first words to Kassandra in seven years._

_“After I kill the last beast?”_

_Daphnae smiled, and then gave her alpha another kiss. “No. Forget the beast. Stay with me, Kassandra. Be with me.”_

_To her surprise, Kassandra laughed, but it wasn’t a hurtful laugh. It was happy, joyful. “I was about to ask you the same thing, Daphnae,” her alpha told her, holding her tighter._

_Daphnae purred. How she missed being held in Kassandra’s strong arms, the feel of her, her scent. How she missed Kassandra. “I know we have much to talk about first,” she said, delighted with her alpha’s responding purr._

_“We do,” Kassandra agreed, and then laughed again. “For starters, I was expecting you to like my gifts.”_

_“They don’t compare to you.” Daphnae didn’t even spare the pelts on the ground a glance, her eyes solely on the gorgeous alpha smiling down on her. “You came back to me, Kassandra. I’m so glad to see you.”_

_“Daphnae, you are the only force strong enough to keep me away. I’m here because I hope you’ll have me.”_

_“I want you, Kassandra. A life with you, a future.”_

_Her sisters would be angry. Artemis would be angry, but for Kassandra, Daphnae would face the wrath of all of Mount Olympus. Kassandra was hers. Her alpha, her love. Artemis would just have to find someone else._

* * *

_They talked, as agreed. Kassandra told her about finding Myrrine on Naxos Island, and then their journey back to Sparta to regain their Spartan citizenship. Daphnae felt immense pride when she learned that her alpha was champion of the pankration, which doubled when she heard about how Kassandra fought alongside Nikolaos and even Stentor to win Boeotia for Sparta._

_However, the Cult lurked, ever present in each event recounted by Kassandra. From Paros Island to Arkadia, to the Olympics and even one of the thrones in Sparta. In the middle of it all was Alexios, whom Kassandra faced in the battlefield at Pylos, and then again, three years later, at Amphipolis._

_The Cult was no more after Kassandra drowned Kleon, something Daphnae wished she could do to him again for imprisoning her alpha for a year following the battle at Pylos. Aspasia, the Cult’s leader in name only but their prisoner in reality, was finally free from their clutches, but Alexios, wounded by Kleon in the battle at Amphipolis, was nowhere to be found._

_“I have to go to Sparta,” Kassandra said, “to tell Mater and Pater what happened.”_

_“And Alexios?” Daphnae asked._

_“I know he’s alive. He’s taken worse hits from me.”_

_“When you find him, come home to me. I’ll be waiting.”_

_“Home,” Kassandra repeated with a smile that Daphnae matched. It felt good to say, even better to hear from her alpha._

_There was not much talking for the rest of the night after that._

* * *

_By morning, Daphnae was sending Kassandra off. She tried, at least._

_“The sooner you go, the sooner you will be back,” she reasoned with her alpha, who not only refused to let her go, but also refused to let her get up from the bed of furs they shared last night. “The sooner we can be together again,” she added, but she couldn’t stop herself from purring when Kassandra nuzzled her neck._

_“We’re together now,” her alpha murmured against her neck. “We’ve been apart seven long years, Daphnae. I want to spend a little more time with you.”_

_Daphnae shivered, exposing her neck for her alpha. She buried her fingers in Kassandra’s hair. “I’m afraid--” she gasped, her breath hitching when she felt fangs graze her throat. She tugged at her alpha’s hair. “It’s time I would love to give you, Kassandra, but I can’t.” That stopped her alpha, who now looked at her in question. “My heat, I’ll have it soon. Maybe sooner if you linger any longer. You must go.”_

_Kassandra was quiet for a long moment, one Daphnae spent playing with her alpha’s hair. Then, eventually, Kassandra spoke, voice strong and sure. “No, Daphnae. I should stay.”_

_Again Daphnae shivered, this time from the alpha tone, and what the statement could mean. She had already given her heart to Kassandra. It felt so natural to give her alpha everything else, but she shouldn’t. Not yet._

_“We can wait,” she told her alpha. She had to make Kassandra look at her because her alpha was staring at her neck, eager to bite, to mate. “Go to Sparta. Find your brother.”_

_“I will. After your heat.”_

_“Kassandra...”_

_“Seven years, Daphnae. I’ve left you alone long enough. Not anymore, not this time, when you need me the most. *Take silphium after. This isn’t about pups, not yet. I just want to be here for you, Daphnae. Let me, please.”_

_Perfect, was all Daphnae could think. Kassandra was perfect, and all hers._

_“It will be about pups, and mating,” she was sure to say. She needed her alpha to know. “When you’re here to stay, Kassandra, it will be.”_

_Her alpha laughed, that same happy, joyful laugh, and Daphnae would never tire of the sound. “I can’t wait.”_

* * *

_The gods could be cruel, jealous, and spiteful. Daphnae was reminded of this when Kassandra, the fool alpha, returned to Chios a month later, presenting to her the pelt of the Lykaon Wolf. It was the last legendary beast, the last trial, and Daphnae had no choice but to see tradition through._

* * *

“The Huntsman knows about this place, Darius,” Kassandra informed the old man, but he paid her no heed, his attention on Phratagouné.

“Who is this?” he demanded, and Kassandra growled at the challenge in his voice.

“Phratagouné. She’s one of Daphnae’s huntresses. She helped us with the bear pelts, as well as the blacksmith’s assistant. Another Ancient is dead thanks to her. Now listen to me,” she demanded right back, and the old man looked at her. “If the Huntsman knows about these ruins, then he knows you’re here. If they saw Daphnae in Mount Athos, they have surely seen Natakas in Potidaia.”

Before Darius could respond, there was a delighted cry of, “Pater!” and Chara emerged from the stairs, followed closely by Alexios. The pup ran ahead, right into Kassandra’s waiting arms, giggling when she was picked up. “I heard your voice, Pater!”

Kassandra grinned, ruffling Chara’s hair with her free hand. “Hello, pup. Did you and your uncle have fun while we were gone?”

“I gave Chara some excellent hunting tips,” Alexios boasted, dragging over Natakas, who had been behind Darius. “Natakas here makes good practice prey. Even squeals just like a startled pig!”

“Mater, Mater, I snuck up on Natakas three times!” Chara exclaimed to Daphnae as the omega walked over to them, the proud pup holding up three fingers for her mother to see.

Daphnae laughed, the beautiful sound taking Kassandra’s breath away. She never thought she would ever hear it again.

“My little girl,” Daphnae praised, kissing the top of Chara’s head and drawing a loud purr from their pup.

Watching the mother and daughter, Kassandra realized that she, in turn, was being watched, and it wasn’t Darius. Phratagouné observed them with a frown, and when the huntress caught her gaze, Phratagouné shook her head. Kassandra would have growled at the huntress were it not for Chara and Daphnae’s presence.

“Phrata? Phrata!” Chara squealed upon realizing the huntress was there.

Kassandra didn’t like the happy sound the pup made for Phratagouné, instantly feeling jealous of it. She fought down her alpha instincts to drive the huntress away, which proved especially challenging since Phratagouné began to approach due to Chara’s excited beckoning.

“It’s good to see you, too, little bird,” Phratagouné greeted Chara, and hearing ‘little bird’ from someone else but Daphnae turned all of Kassandra’s aggression into hurt.

“Phrata, have you met my pater?” Chara asked, easing Kassandra’s pain as quickly as it had come, all without realizing it. “Look how big and strong she is, Phrata! Mater said she’s the strongest alpha in the world!”

Phratagouné glanced at Daphnae, and the omega held her head high, looking the huntress in the eye until it was Phratagouné who dropped her gaze. Smiling for Chara’s sake, Phratagouné said, “Yes, little bird, I’ve met your father. She is... strong, indeed.”

Chara nodded in earnest, little arms clinging around Kassandra’s neck. “Are you gonna stay with us, Phrata?”

“Yes,” Darius echoed, “is she?”

“Phratagouné is staying,” Kassandra said, and just as she thought, Darius disagreed, he grumbled, but he didn’t leave.

* * *

When night had fallen, Kassandra perched on the highest peak of Rock Arch. She had no intentions of sleeping. If the Huntsman was watching right now, then Kassandra wanted him to know that she was aware of it.

_Show yourself, you snake._

“Running away from a beta? That’s not like you.”

Kassandra snorted. She had heard Alexios approach, caught her brother’s scent the moment he started climbing his way up to her. “I’m not running away. I’m keeping watch.”

“Right, I’m sure that’s all you’re doing,” Alexios drawled, giving a snort of his own. He sat behind her, not next to her, their backs to each other. That way, Kassandra only had to worry about what was in front of her. She appreciated the aid, as well as her brother’s company.

“Are they sleeping?” she asked, not specifying. Alexios knew whom she meant.

“Chara is. That pup of yours sleeps almost as much as she eats.”

Kassandra smiled. She could hear the fondness in Alexios’ voice.

“As for the omega, you can see for yourself. Ikaros is with them, after all.”

Kassandra twirled her spear in her hand. “I’d rather not intrude.”

Alexios scoffed, and even though she couldn’t see it, Kassandra knew her brother was rolling his eyes. “She’s not fucking the beta, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

“It’s not,” Kassandra said, and it was the truth. She saw the protest - the pleading - in Daphnae’s eyes when she told the omega she was going to stand guard on Rock Arch all night.

The pull was still there, still strong. Kassandra felt a crippling need to be near Daphnae, and while her alpha instincts to protect her family had won out, it was a constant battle not to run into the ruins and claim the omega.

Phratagouné, though not a threat, aggravated the feeling. The huntress was a painful reminder of the time she didn’t have with Daphnae and Chara, and what little of it she had left.

“Are you really just going to let that omega walk away when this is over? With your pup?”

Kassandra said nothing. She knew her silence was answer enough.

* * *

Chara woke up, sad to see that her father wasn’t there, even sadder to see her mother awake, looking like she hadn’t slept at all.

“Mater? Where is Pater?”

“Still out, little bird,” her mother said, pulling her closer and stroking her hair.

“But it’s morning,” Chara whined, and tried to peek at the stairs, but there was no one there.

“She should be back soon.”

Ikaros chirped, agreeing with her mother. Her uncle also wasn’t around, but Phratagouné was, sitting nearby. Phratagouné looked worried about her mother.

“Mater, you look tired,” she said to her mother. She thought of the day before, when her father and mother slept so well that they didn’t wake up when she wiggled out from between them. She remembered how her mother snuggled up to her father and purred. “You should rest with Pater when she comes back.”

Her mother smiled, but it was sad smile. “That would be nice, little bird.”

Phratagouné seemed upset with her mother’s answer. Phratagouné didn’t like her father, didn’t like it when her mother talked about or even looked at her father. Chara asked why last night, and Phratagouné told her that it was because her parents couldn’t be together after, so they should just stay apart now.

_But it makes them sad, like now,_ Chara thought, sure that her father was just as sad right now.

Her mother touched her neck a lot, like she kept looking for something that wasn’t there. Sometimes, when she realized it wasn’t there, her mother looked like she was going to cry, and Chara didn’t know what to do except hug her mother and purr as strong as she could for her. But she knew, she was sure, that what her mother really needed was her father.

Chara remembered what her mother said, about how there were things they couldn’t have, no matter how badly they wanted it, and again she wanted to ask why, but she didn’t. Her mother was already hurting, and Chara didn’t want to hurt her even more.

* * *

Kassandra entered the ruins just as Darius as he was heading out. She was sure it was no accident.

“How went the watch?” the old man asked.

“Saw no signs of Persians, or anything suspicious.”

“As I thought. The Ancient you killed was nothing more than an expendable messenger, Eagle Bearer. The Huntsman wanted you to know that he’s aware of our whereabouts. The real danger is what we do with this information.”

“So you think we shouldn’t look for another place to hide? That’s what Daphnae thinks, too,” Kassandra said. Behind her, Alexios grunted, displeased that she mentioned the omega at all. She didn’t mind her brother, prompting Darius to continue.

The old man nodded. “I don’t question the skills of a Daughter of Artemis, certainly not their leader. If the Order managed to follow her so closely without her knowledge, then there’s something else at play here. Until we find out what that is, the ruins are the safest place to be.”

“Because he would have already struck if he thought we were vulnerable,” Kassandra concluded, and Darius nodded again. “Do you think this has something to do with how easily the Order overran the huntress village in Chios?”

“It’s possible. As I keep saying, the Order’s reach and power is considerable. They could have been observing Chios for years before the attack. Your brother told me Akantha was your mother’s friend. You’ve known her long, your mother has known her longer. I know it means little coming from me, but trust is a path we must tread carefully when the Order is involved, even with those we’ve come to know as friends.”

“Daphnae trusts Phratagouné to lead in her place.”

“Is that enough for you, Eagle Bearer?”

“Yes.”

“For your family’s sake, I hope you are right,” Darius said, and unlike their previous encounters, he didn’t sound like he was looking for a fight.

“Where are you going?” Kassandra asked.

"To listen to what the locals are saying, to watch as the Huntsman does. I’m heading to Amphipolis. Natakas is already at Potidaia. There's three more of his Ancients about in Makedonia, and they're making their presence felt, we just have to find where,” Darius said, and then went on his way.

“That was strange,” Kassandra remarked to Alexios once the old man was out of sight. “He usually can’t wait to piss me off. Maybe Daphnae talked to him.”

“Makes sense if she did.” Alexios grunted. “The old man’s no good to us dead, which is what he’ll be if he kept annoying you. We need him to get rid of the Order. Getting rid of the Order means getting rid of you, after all.”

Like the night before, Kassandra had no fight to give. Alexios was right. It was what Daphnae wanted, not her.

“We should hunt,” she said instead. “Chara must be hungry.”

Alexios sighed. “All right.”

* * *

They hunted quickly, not wanting to be away from the ruins too long. When they returned, Daphnae and Phratagouné were on the first level of the ruins with Chara. They then prepared the meat, cooked it, and sat together for a meal, the silence of it they filled for the pup’s sake.

Daphnae looked tired, Kassandra noticed. _Did she get any sleep?_

As they were finishing up, Natakas appeared, the male omega out of breath from running.

“Kassandra!” he panted.

“What’s wrong, Natakas?” Kassandra asked, approaching the male omega until Daphnae growled.

Natakas squeaked and backed away from her so fast that he stumbled. Daphnae, realizing what she was doing, stopped and sat back down. She didn’t let go Kassandra’s arm, however, which the alpha didn’t remember her grabbing.

“I’m sorry,” Daphnae said to Natakas, both Phratagouné and Alexios glaring at her.

Kassandra growled at them, turning their glares on her, but she ignored them. Chara was her first concern, and while their pup was clinging to Daphnae, she wasn’t frightened, just alarmed. Daphnae still held on to her arm, and when the omega did let go, it was with obvious reluctance.

“Did something happen, Natakas?” Kassandra asked, keeping her distance from the male omega this time.

Natakas stood up and glanced at Daphnae first, wary. “The people in Potidaia are ill, Kassandra,” he started to say, making sure not to look at her in fear of angering Daphnae. “Timosa, their physician, went out in search of ingredients for the cure, but it’s been days. The magistrate sent his men to find her, but they haven’t returned, either. The sickness is spreading, and the magistrate has given orders to cull, to kill anyone who so much as coughs once. I need help finding Timosa before that madman burns his own village to the ground.”

Kassandra hesitated. She wanted to help, but she couldn’t risk being too far away from the ruins for too long. Her presence could very well be what was keeping the Huntsman at bay.

“I’ll go,” Alexios suddenly said, already standing. “You haven’t slept at all--”

“No,” Kassandra barked at her brother, the strong alpha in edge in her voice making him sit back down. “The Order could be behind this. You’re not going.”

“They’re not, Kassandra, I’m sure of it,” Natakas insisted. “I’ve been to Potidaia every day since Father and I came to Makedonia. There hasn’t been one sign of the Order, just innocent people getting sick and needing help.”

Alexios stood up again, and this time, Kassandra didn’t stop him. Instead, she looked at Natakas, the male omega shrinking under her glare despite still not looking at her. “You’re absolutely certain the Order has nothing to do with this?” she asked him.

Natakas flinched, but he answered with a clear, “Yes.”

Kassandra huffed. “Go, then,” she said to Alexios, grasping his shoulder, “and hurry back.”

“I will,” Alexios promised, and Kassandra let him go with a pat on the back.

“Daphnae, your sutures need removing,” Phratagouné said once the two men were gone. “I’ll take them out when we’re done eating.”

Daphnae glanced at Kassandra, the longing in the omega’s eyes undeniable, but then Daphnae turned away, back to Phratagouné. “Only if Kassandra doesn’t mind staying up a little longer to watch Chara.”

“I don’t mind,” Kassandra said, reaching for Chara, relieved when their pup snuggled up to her. She had been worried that her earlier display of dominance over Alexios would leave Chara too scared to be close to her, but like on the Adrestia, their pup didn’t turn her away.

“Don’t take too long, Mater,” Chara called out to Daphnae. “You and Pater need to rest.”

* * *

“What do you want to do, pup?”

“We can just stay here, Pater. I know you’re tired. Mater is, too.”

It was a tempting suggestion, Kassandra had to admit. Laying on the bedroll and blankets she and Daphnae shared last, it calmed the roar of her alpha instincts to mate with Daphnae. Not completely, but enough to give her some peace. Chara’s scent had a lot to do with it.

Chara held in her arms, Kassandra buried her nose in her daughter’s hair and breathed. “I’m sorry we haven’t spent a lot of time together, pup,” she murmured, and then sighed. “I wish we could go outside. I’d love to hunt with you, fish with you. I’m so jealous of your uncle.”

“I’m sorry, too, Pater,” Chara whimpered. The words alone were distressing, the sniffles that came with them nearly had Kassandra panicking.

“Chara, what is it? What’s wrong?” she asked, sitting up and cradling her daughter’s face in her hands and wiping the tears, but more just came. "Did I say something, pup? Do something?"

Chara shook her head, lower lip wobbling, and then the pup sobbed. "I don't feel happy right now. I'm sorry, Pater. I'm trying. I really am."

Kassandra gathered her small, sniffling pup back in her arms. "That's nothing to be sorry about, Chara. You don't have to be happy all the time. It’s okay."

"But you'll leave again soon," Chara whined between the sobs, the poor thing crying so much she was hiccuping, "and I don't want to be sad when you're here because you make me happy."

"You make me happy, too, pup, you and your mater. You make me so happy," Kassandra whispered, fighting back her own tears, "but I’m also sad because I don't want to leave.”

“Then don’t leave, Pater. Please?”

“I’m sorry, Chara.”

"Why, Pater? What’s making you go away? Is it stronger than you? I thought you were the strongest alpha in the world.”

Kassandra didn’t think she could be in any more pain until now. The very phrase that lifted her spirits just the night before now crushed her under its weight, under the innocence and hope with which it was said.

“There are things stronger than alphas, pup,” she said when she finally found her voice, “things stronger than me. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

What a failure she was. What a coward.

* * *

Later, Phratagouné descended the stairs alone. “Chara, your mother is upstairs,” the huntress said. “Please to go her, little bird. She misses you.”

“Go on, pup,” Kassandra urged before Chara could hesitate. “I’ll follow you when I can.”

“Okay, Pater,” her pup said, giving her a hug.

Kassandra purred for Chara, waiting until her pup was the one to let go. When she did, the alpha kissed the top of her head, and then watched her go up stairs.

Left alone with Phratagouné now, Kassandra stood when the huntress approached. She towered over Phratagouné, glared down at her as she waited for the huntress speak.

“Chara’s eyes are red,” Phratagouné remarked. “She’s been crying?”

“She’s seen horrors no pup should,” Kassandra growled, “and she doesn’t understand why her mother and father can’t be together.”

“You haven’t told her?” Phratagouné asked, surprised, and Kassandra bared her fangs at the huntress.

“I don’t want my only pup to think she and mother live with monsters.”

“She will understand,” Phratagouné said like it was so simple, “as her mother did. Life is harsh, Eagle Bearer, the wilds we Daughters live in even harsher. To survive, we must be strong. You are Spartan. Surely, this is something you understand. You, especially, Eagle Bearer.”

“Spartans don’t have mates kill each other!”

“Daughters of Artemis don’t throw their little girls off mountains.”

A snarl was the only response Kassandra could muster. She circled Phratagouné like a predator sizing up another. The huntress remained calm, and it was infuriating.

“And Daphnae is not your mate, Eagle Bearer. I don’t fault your recent behavior any more than I fault hers. She told me what happened. You alphas and omegas are ruled by instinct, and I know this is very difficult for you both. In fact, I really admire your restraint. You must really love her.”

“You would be dead if I didn’t.”

Despite the threat, Phratagouné smiled. “She loves you, too, Eagle Bearer. She defied Artemis for you, once when she asked you to give up the great hunt, and again when she told you to leave after you refused to fight. Did you know this?” The answer must had been clear on her face, because Phratagouné went on. “You were her trial, as the beasts of legends were yours. She was supposed to prove to Artemis that she was worthy of leading the Daughters by besting you. Instead, she fell in love with you, and she dared to have what was not meant for her.”

_“A life with you, a future.”_

Kassandra grabbed Phratagouné by the neck, shaking with rage, with pain. “Why tell me this?”

“Because I don’t hate you, Eagle Bearer, nor do my sisters. The truth is we’re jealous of you, we’re afraid of you, because you almost took Daphnae away from us. She is like Chara. She was raised by the Daughters. She is ours. Chara is ours. Don’t make Daphnae choose between you and her sisters again. You’ll only hurt her and yourself, and you may not believe me, but I don’t think you deserve that.”

Kassandra’s hand twitched, but Phratagouné didn’t flinch. With a growl, she let go of the huntress, who then left without another word.

The alpha paced, trying to calm down, to think of something else, anything else.

_“It will be about pups, and mating. When you’re here to stay, Kassandra, it will be.”_

Kassandra rushed up the stairs. She had to go outside, to be somewhere else.

Instead she ran into Natakas, who was alone.

“Where is Alexios?” she demanded. “Where is my brother?”

Alexios was still in Potidaia. He killed the magistrate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Per my googling efforts, silphium is one of the things Ancient Greeks used as contraceptives. It also apparently functioned as an abortifacient. If that’s inaccurate in any way, then I’m just gonna say it’s really effective on omegas.
> 
> This is actually just half of what I outlined for this chapter. I had to stop here because it was getting too long and because I realized that the next chapter would have been too short. I wanted to end this chapter with the much needed confrontation between Kassandra and Daphnae.
> 
> I’m sorry this chapter was so miserable. The DLC fucked me up.
> 
> Thank you for all the kudos and comments. I will never stop expressing how grateful I am. Two chapters to go. I honestly can’t wait to finish this and take a break.


	8. Bleeding Gods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read the recent news about the ‘fix’. One scene change and some dialogue tweaks does not give me hope that Kassandra can be truly be free of the disease known as Nutsuckass. But if this is enough for you, then I'm happy for you.
> 
> Anyway, to the fic: I don’t think I went into too much detail, but the first part of this chapter deals with Alexios after he kills the magistrate, and it may make some people uncomfortable. Also a reminder that the graphic violence tag is there, just in case.

Over a dozen Spartans lay dead by the time Kassandra arrived in Potidaia, and Alexios, with nothing but his bare hands, was about to kill a dozen more.

“Alexios!” Kassandra roared, and though the thunder in her voice sent civilians running and had Spartan soldiers cowering, Alexios didn’t even flinch, didn’t even seem to hear her.

“She was just a little girl!” her brother howled, but he wasn’t talking to her, not to any of the soldiers or the locals. He was the talking the magistrate, only recognizable by his clothes.

The magistrate’s face, what had been left of it, was a bloodied mess. His skull was crushed, scattered on the ground like broken glass. Still, it angered Alexios that the dead man didn’t answer him.

Quickly, Kassandra chased off the Spartan soldiers stubborn and stupid enough to stand between Alexios and the magistrate. “Move before I break your legs!” she barked at them, and when their captain dared to defy her, she kicked the other alpha through the wall of a house and out the other. She would not have more blood on her brother’s hands because of Spartan arrogance.

That was all she could for Alexios, for now. He was lost inside his own mind, too far for her to reach. She’d have to wait for him to come back, for him to exhaust himself, whichever was first. Often, it was the latter.

Alexios continued to beat on a dead man. “She was just a little girl!” he yelled again and again, until the magistrate’s chest was hollow, until there was no more flesh, bone, or organ between Alexios’ fists and the ground, only blood. It was only then that he finally stopped.

Kassandra kneeled in front of her brother, waiting for him to look up, to look at her. Alexios stared at his dirty, bloody hands, gasping like a man who had just come out of the water after nearly drowning. When his eyes found hers and she saw Alexios, not Deimos, Kassandra pulled him in, touched her forehead to his, and she let him hold on to her when the weight on what he had done fell on his shoulders.

“She was just a little girl,” Alexios repeated the words as if they were the only ones he knew to say. This time, in tears, through sobs. He trembled, but Kassandra held him up, kept him steady.

“I know,” she said simply.

* * *

“Your brother killed my soldiers, Kassandra, some my best alphas!” Teutamos was outraged, understandably. He had come from Amphipolis to yell at her. He would have preferred to also be yelling at Alexios, but a growl from her was enough to change his mind.

So Alexios was taken to the warehouse with Natakas, under heavy guard, and here Kassandra sat, in the house of the man her brother had just killed, listening to Makedonia’s Spartan commander complain about the inconveniences she and Alexios had put upon him. It had been on Teutamos’ insistence that they use the magistrate’s house for this, not giving a second thought to the man’s grief-stricken wife when he had her thrown out of her own house.

“And what he did to the magistrate,” Teutamos ranted on, “as if our relationship with the locals wasn’t bad enough. Your brother not only killed their leader but he desecrated the man’s corpse! And what did you do, Kassandra? You watched! You watched until the man was nothing more than a smear to wipe off the ground!”

Kassandra looked Teutamos in the eye, and though she was the one sitting down, she was no less intimidating. Subtly, Teutamos drifted closer to his biggest soldiers, two male alphas she could kill without standing up. If he could smell their fear, he would go elsewhere for protection.

“Would you rather Alexios killed more of your alphas, Teutamos? The magistrate was already dead. There was nothing more I could do for him.”

“And I suppose I should thank you for kicking one of my captains through a house?”

“She lives, does she not?”

A statement that could only be described as flippantly Spartan, it left Teutamos sputtering for a response. Kassandra knew little of the man, despite her mother being friends with his wife Akantha. Her father lauded Teutamos’ strategic brilliance, but now she could see that he was just a puppet used by Akantha, because what flailed in front of her was no commander. It was a liar desperate to maintain a ruse. He would be exposed, eventually.

“What do you want, Teutamos?” she asked him. She had no time for him to waste.

“What I want, pup,” he began, suddenly finding his nerve, a shred of courage that he used to say ‘pup’ in the most insulting way, “what I want is for your brother to answer for the Spartan blood he spilled today, but we both know that won’t happen. King Archidamos turned a blind eye to Brasidas’ death. These less decorated soldiers have no chance for justice.”

“Survive a fall from Taygetos, Teutamos, then perhaps you’ll be afforded the same preferential treatment.” It was a privilege Kassandra had no qualms flaunting in the face of snivelling rats like Teutamos. Sparta owed her and Alexios that, and more. “If not that, then save the king from an Athenian naval fleet, without a ship of your own.”

“We’re not all so blessed by the gods, pup.” Teutamos preened now, like a hyena chancing upon a dying lion. “I am, however, in charge of Makedonia, and though I can’t pass judgment on your brother, I do have the power to send him back to Sparta.”

Kassandra stood up, slowly, Teutamos’ bravado shrinking as she rose to her full height. She looked at the man, not speaking yet, and though he squirmed, he didn’t take back what he said. “And if I disagree?” she finally asked.

Teutamos stepped back, behind his two male alpha guards. “Then, like your brother, you’d be spilling Spartan blood today.”

* * *

Kassandra found Alexios at the top of Rock Arch. She sat next to him, not saying a word. Alexios would talk when he was ready.

It was good that he cried. He didn’t used to.

Natakas told her what happened. Timosa, Potidaia’s physician, was an Ancient of the Order, and she had been spreading the illness in the guise of a cure. Her guilt was proven when Alexios told her to take it herself before she gave it to anyone else and she refused. He killed her and the mercenaries she had hired for protection. Then the magistrate revealed that he had the last of sick culled, among them a girl, and that was where it all went wrong.

It would haunt Alexios, the Spartans he killed, their families.

_I shouldn’t have let him go,_ was Kassandra’s first thought. _I’m so sorry, Alexios,_ she wanted to tell her brother, but that wouldn’t bring back the dead Spartans. It wouldn’t ease his guilt, only hers. _I shouldn’t have listened to Natakas. I should have gone instead._

Alexios was looking at his hands. They were clean. _“Only on the outside,”_ he told her the last time something like this happened. It was an improvement from what he would say before that, the worst of which was, _“I don’t belong in this world. You should have killed me on Taygetos.”_

Eventually, Alexios sighed, and then he spoke. “When is Barnabas coming?”

“Not long now. Ikaros has returned with his response. He’s on his way with some of the crew,” she said, and when he looked at her, she asked, “Are you sure about this, Alexios? You can stay, if that’s what you really want.”

It was as she told Teutamos: Alexios would go back to Sparta if he wanted to. If he did, then Teutamos would have his entire naval fleet escort the Adrestia to Sparta, manned by his best soldiers. He had balked at her demands, but he was even less willing to bleed, despite his bold statement.

“Are you worried that the Order will come after me, even with Teutamos’ fleet?”

“The Huntsman is two Ancients weaker since I returned to Makedonia. Four total. I destroyed all the ships that followed me to Chios. Barnabas has been talking to every merchant who has docked in Makedonia since we arrived, and none of them have noticed Persian ships from here to as far as Keos. I’ve also had him put out a large bounty for Persian ships, so every pirate will be scouring the Aegean for them.”

“You did all that for me?”

“You are my brother, Alexios.”

Alexios frowned, and then looked at his hands again. “The... little girl in Potidaia, I didn’t even get a chance to know her name. She asked me to find the physician for her mother. Not for herself but for her mother, who was also sick, but also pregnant. She--” His voice caught, his eyes watering. “She was so small, like Chara. I thought I could help her. I wanted to.”

Kassandra put an arm around Alexios’ shoulders. He leaned on her, and they stayed like that until his whimpers stopped and his eyes were dry.

* * *

“You know, when Mater finds out Teutamos called you pup, she’s going to break his nose.”

“You’re going to tell her?”

“You’re not?”

Kassandra laughed, and so did Alexios. To call a grown alpha ‘pup’ was an insult among Spartans. Not a father, it meant. Not an alpha. A failure. Though true as far as Teutamos knew, and though Myrrine herself had been pushing her to mate over the years, her mother won’t let such an insult go unpunished. “If I kept count, that’s how many times she’d break his nose,” she said, both of them laughing again.

“Especially since he’s wrong!” Alexios declared, patting her on the back. “You’re a father, Kassandra. You’re a father! Wait until I tell everyone back home. They’ll be so happy. Well, except Stentor. He’ll pout that you beat him at something. Again. And he’s already lost at being best uncle. But, Mater, Pater, the look on their faces when I tell them they have a granddaughter, at last!”

“Alexios,” Kassandra said, not laughing with her brother this time, “I think it’s best if--”

“If what?” Alexios was confused, at first, then angry the next instant. It wasn’t new, him flying from one mood to another, and Kassandra hated to have brought it on, but she needed her brother to understand. “You don’t want Mater and Pater to know about Chara?” he growled before she could answer. “I’m just supposed to act like I don’t have a niece?”

“You know why, Alexios.”

“No, I don’t!” He pushed her and stood up, and then grabbed the collar of her armor, dragging her up to her own feet. “What is wrong with you, Kassandra? Why do you let that omega walk all over you? I’m sick of it, and I’m sick of pretending I’m not. Chara is your daughter. Your pup. Yours! You’re her father. Act like it!”

“I am,” Kassandra said, and Alexios let her go, and then punched her. “What the fuck, Alexios?!”

“That omega is a snake, Kassandra! A fucking snake!” he roared right back at her. “She’s lied to you, again and again and again. Her lies brought me here. Her lies hurt you in ways the Cult could only dream of, and you think she loves you? She used you, Kassandra. For breeding. For protection. And just like before, when she’s done with you, she’s going to throw you away.”

“Shut up. Shut up!” she snarled, knocking him down with a punch of her own. “You don’t know her, Alexios. Just because you know how I feel doesn’t mean you know how she does.”

Alexios sneered, his bared teeth the only warning before he charged at her.

* * *

Daphnae heard it, the shouting and then the fighting. She ran, fast as she could, and then threw herself in the middle of two bloodthirsty wolves. “Enough!” she growled at them both, pushing them away from each other. Now having the attention of two angry alphas, Daphnae stood tall. The tension in the air, the danger in it, it quieted nature itself, as though the gods themselves had been left speechless, and it was her voice that broke the silence.

Kassandra was the first to react, the alpha recognizing her scent first, and then her physical presence. “Daphnae.” Her name was spoken so softly, a far cry from the vicious snarl just moments ago.

On Alexios, however, she had the opposite effect. The male alpha glared at her, so furious he was shaking. “I am not your dog, you whore!”

He was down before he could get up, Kassandra leveling him with a kick to the gut. “You do not speak to her that way!”

“Kassandra, enough!” Daphnae demanded once more, catching Kassandra’s arm mid-swing. “Barnabas is here. Alexios has to be at Amphipolis by nightfall, if he wants to go back to Sparta.”

The alpha siblings stared at each other. Bruised and bloody like they had just come out of a battlefield, Kassandra and Alexios were poised to continue fighting should the other make a wrong move or say the wrong thing. They waited, at a standstill, until Daphnae had enough.

“Kassandra,” she prompted the alpha, who eventually relented.

“Clean yourself up before you say goodbye to Chara,” Kassandra told Alexios. The order was simple, delivered with authority.

Alexios scoffed and spat out blood. His upper lip twitch, the temptation to taunt Kassandra clear, to start another brawl, but Chara’s name, it seemed, mellowed out the male alpha, and finally, he lowered his gaze. He stood up, glaring at Daphnae, and then stormed off.

Alone with Kassandra now, it was the alpha who spoke first. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” she said, and Kassandra only nodded. Daphnae knew the pause was a chance to leave, to escape, as she always did, with all the answers, and leave Kassandra with nothing but pain.

“You should go,” Kassandra told her when she remained. “I’ll wash up, hunt on the way back.”

Daphnae dropped her hand. She watched as Kassandra removed her gauntlets, and then her breastplate. The Spartan armor was dented from the fight with Alexios, alarming since both alphas only used their fists. Daphnae helped Kassandra remove the breastplate and the rest of the alpha’s armor, even offered a piece of cloth for Kassandra to wipe the blood off with.

“Thank you.”

“What did Alexios mean when he said I brought him here?” Daphnae was asking out loud before she could think about it.

Kassandra looked surprised, not because of her question, but because she was still there. Still, the alpha indulged her, as she always did. “When I returned to Sparta to tell my parents about the battle at Amphipolis, I also found Alexios. He was on Mount Taygetos. I gave him my spear as a peace offering, and when he touched it, there formed this strange bond between us. Whatever it was I felt, he also felt. It stopped, eventually, and we thought that was the end of it.”

“Until the Order?”

“If I had to guess, it was when I found out about Chara. It was the first time in years I felt anything so… strongly.” _When I read the letter that revealed I was a father, and that you kept it from me,_ was what Kassandra didn’t say. “I don’t know if it means that bond from the spear has returned, or perhaps it never left, that it’s more specific than I thought, but Alexios hasn’t felt anything similar since.”

“So when you said Alexios knew how you felt…”

“He told me that touching the spear showed him glimpses of my memories. It was what convinced him that all I ever wanted to do was to bring him back to our mater. But, along with the bond, he continued to have the visions, most of which included you, before and after Chios years ago.”

“He knows what I did, saw it through your eyes, and still you fought for me?”

“He doesn’t understand how you feel.”

“Do you?”

Kassandra didn’t answer. The cloth was soaked in blood now. The alpha wrung it.

It was another pause, another chance to leave, but Daphnae stayed. She wanted to blame the desperate pull she had been feeling since they almost mated, but it was gone. As abruptly as it came, it was gone.

“Why didn’t you just tell me the truth, Daphnae?” Kassandra finally asked, years overdue.

“Tradition, to a point,” Daphnae replied. “I wasn’t supposed to get attached, certainly not fall in love with you.”

“And when you did?”

“I asked you to give up the hunt. If you didn’t complete the trials, it meant we could be together, truly be together. I didn’t take silphium after my heat because I remembered what you said, how we’ve waited long enough. I thought it would have been a wonderful surprise for when you came back.”

“It would have been.”

Daphnae closed her eyes. She didn’t miss it, the way Kassandra’s voice cracked. Briefly, she imagined how the alpha would have looked that day, if things had gone differently, how wide Kassandra’s smile would be, how bright a twinkle in her eyes when told that she’d be a father. What a beautiful sight it would have been.

“I killed the Lykaon Wolf because it brought its pack to Helot Hills,” Kassandra said, answering her unspoken question. “People were dying. I had to put it down. And I brought the pelt to you because I thought it would have been romantic to prove to Artemis that I was worthy of her chosen huntress.”

Daphnae reached out, touching Kassandra’s arm. “It is I who’s unworthy of you, Kassandra. I’ve hurt you so much, and still you look at me with so much love. I don’t deserve it. I never did. It will never be enough, but I am sorry. I am so sorry.”

With nothing more to say, it was finally time to leave, but before Daphnae could drop her hand, Kassandra caught it, and didn’t let her go. Daphnae looked back, confused why her vision was blurry until Kassandra wiped the tears from her eyes.

“What will you do after this, Daphnae? Live the rest of your life with a broken heart, like your mother did?”

“You’ll be there for me to love, even if from afar. That is not something my mother had.” Daphnae nuzzled the rough hands cupping her face. She thought of her mother crying apologies and regrets in her sleep. It was on nights like those that she learned her father’s name. It was Alekto.

“I’m here now, Daphnae, right in front of you,” Kassandra told her. Her hand was now on the alpha’s chest, feeling her strong heartbeat. “Let me love you back. Please.”

“But Artemis, our laws, I can’t change--”

“You already have, Daphnae. I’m here. I’m here, and that’s because of you, because you didn’t do what your mother did.”

“I couldn’t.” Daphnae clenched her hand over Kassandra’s chest. “You are my heart, my love, the father of my child.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when we’ve dealt with the Huntsman, I will talk to my sisters.”

Kassandra smiled. Daphnae could feel the alpha’s heart race, each beat making the weight on her shoulders feel lighter and lighter. “Can I tell Chara?”

Daphnae laughed, and she wondered how it could have taken her this long to fight for this wonderful alpha. Her wonderful alpha. “Yes.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Daphnae said, already pulling Kassandra down. “Yes.”

* * *

On the way down back to the ruins, they saw Phratagouné, who took one look at them and knew, somehow. To their surprise, the huntress smiled. “I suppose we’ll have to learn to share,” Phratagouné said of herself and their sisters. Perhaps, too, of Artemis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this again ended earlier than I outlined. Chapter count has been bumped up by one, so two more to go. I also don’t know if it’s obvious, but I originally planned for the Kassandra/Daphnae scene to go the completely opposite way. There was supposed to be a lot of yelling and a lot of angst. I even said it was going to be the saddest chapter, but as I was writing it out, it didn’t feel right.
> 
> As always, to all of you giving this fic love: thank you. Thank you. Two more chapters, for real this time. I can’t wait.


	9. The Keeper

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the love. We’re almost there.

Daphnae smiled when she felt Kassandra start to wake. She lifted her head from her alpha’s chest, where she had been spending her time, and then greeted Kassandra with a kiss on the jaw.

Kassandra turned towards her, making a happy sound. “Did I sleep long? Feels like I did.”

“You needed the rest,” Daphnae said, placing her hand on Kassandra’s chest because she wanted to feel the rumble of her alpha’s strong purr. “And Chara wouldn’t have let you do much else.”

Chara, tucked under Kassandra’s arm, was sound asleep and purring, the sound and strength of it almost rivaling her father’s.

“She’s never done that before, purr in her sleep.” Daphnae stroked Chara’s hair, and soon her hand was covered with Kassandra’s. “Not even with the wolf pups and bear cubs she’d take naps with.”

“She did that?”

“So often I’ve had mother wolves and bears make me feel like a thief whenever I take her to her own bed.”

Kassandra chuckled. Daphnae allowed herself to enjoy the sound of it. She could now, and it felt good.

“Next time she does, I’ll get her so the wolves and the bears can blame me instead.”

It was Daphnae’s turn to laugh. “My hero,” she crooned at her proud alpha, who basked in the praise. “But I don’t think that’s something you’d have to worry about for a while. Chara hasn’t left your side since we told her the news. I may not even get you to myself any time soon.”

Daphnae’s gaze wandered, now on her alpha’s neck. The clean flesh needed her mate mark. She drew close, called by Kassandra’s scent, but she held back, kissing instead of biting. Kassandra purred louder, the reaction tempting her, but again Daphnae resisted.

After, they had both agreed. After the Huntsman and the Order. After her sisters’ approval. After Artemis’ blessing.

“I love you,” she told Kassandra, because that she could do now. She murmured it against the skin that would soon bear her mate mark.

“I love you.” Kassandra held her close, happy to have her in one arm and Chara in the other. “And I want to thank you, Daphnae, for having me, for letting me be a father to Chara, and soon, a mate to you. I will be an alpha worthy your love, yours and hers. I promise.”

“You already are, Kassandra,” Daphnae whispered, kissing her alpha’s neck again. “My sisters will see that, as will Artemis. Phratagouné has.”

“Phratagouné?” Kassandra snorted. “She told me to say away from you. And now she’s nice to me. What an odd woman.”

“She told you that I went against our laws for you. Were she truly opposed to us being together, she wouldn’t have.”

“You Daughters of Artemis would confuse a sphinx with the way you speak in riddles,” Kassandra grumbled, but Daphnae could hear the relief in her alpha’s voice.

If Phratagouné understood the need for change - had hand in it, even - then there was hope that their sisters would also accept it.

“I’ll keep that in mind when I talk to my sisters,” Daphnae said, purring to soothe her alpha. She brought her hand back up to Kassandra’s chest, seeking out her alpha’s strong, steady heartbeats. “Where did this come from?” she asked of the large scar that was far too close to her alpha’s heart.

“Alexios. At Mount Taygetos. Giving him the spear had been a gamble. I was defenseless, and he was angry, confused. Ran me right through with his sword.” Kassandra sighed, and Daphnae felt the arm around her tighten. “I was so scared. I thought I was going to die on that cursed mountain, keep you waiting forever. All I wanted was to see you again.”

“And when you did, I turned you away.” Daphnae started to draw her hand away, but Kassandra held her there.

“You didn’t this time, Daphnae. We can be a family now, you, me, Chara, and the pups we’ll have.”

“Pups?” Daphnae repeated, and she couldn’t help it, she smiled. “We’re having more, are we?”

“Aren’t we?” Kassandra teased right back.

“A whole litter that would bring the mighty Eagle Bearer to her knees.”

“I can’t wait.”

Daphnae smiled and again kissed where her mate mark will be, but lingered a lot longer this time. “You’ll be a wonderful father, Kassandra. You already are to Chara,” she said, and then nuzzled her alpha’s neck, indulging in the scent she had missed so much over the years.

Kassandra squeezed her hand before reaching for Chara, stroking their pup’s hair. Daphnae did the same, and Chara slept on, still purring.

“She always loved to be held,” Daphnae began to say. It felt nice to tell Kassandra all these little stories, and her alpha loved to hear them. “Always loved to be outside. When she was a baby, she’d watch birds for hours on end if I let her. She loved to watch them fly, so much that it was the very first word she said: ‘fly’.”

“Little bird,” Kassandra whispered with reverence, and Daphnae placed her hand over her alpha’s, stroking scarred knuckles with her thumb.

“Little bird.”

* * *

Darius and Natakas returned later that afternoon. While they found no clues on either Timosa or the mercenaries she had hired, Alexios’ actions in Potidaia had spurred the Order into abrupt action. The locals were afraid, and the Spartans under Teutamos’ command were angry. Word spread fast, and loudly: the Huntsman himself would appear before a crowd tonight.

“-- to bring order to the chaos wrought by the Tainted Ones,” Darius said, reading from the scroll they had retrieved from Amphipolis. “This was far too easy to find, Eagle Bearer. It’s not even written in code. The Huntsman is challenging you to face him tonight, or he may very well march all of Makedonia into these ruins.”

“That fucking coward,” Kassandra growled, startling Natakas and making him hide behind Darius. The male omega had been terrified of her since Potidaia. _He should be. This is his fault. This is happening because of he couldn’t do one thing right._

“It’s a risk, either way.” Daphnae rubbed her arm soothingly. The omega - her omega - was the one reason Natakas still lived. Ironic. She should have let Daphnae kill him when they first arrived in Makedonia. “If we’re not walking into the Huntsman’s trap, then we’d be leaving the ruins vulnerable,” Daphnae said.

“Then I’ll go to the Huntsman, alone, since I’m the one he’s challenging,” Kassandra decided. It was an easy choice to make. “Stay with Chara,” she told Daphnae, her voice soft when she spoke to her omega.

Daphnae squeezed her arm. “Hurry back.”

“I will.” Kassandra leaned into her omega’s touch. “I promise.”

“Don’t be so quick to underestimate the Huntsman, Eagle Bearer,” Darius warned, and behind him, Natakas ducked lower. “He still has two of his Ancients, and we’re no closer to determining just how he manages to keep an eye on all of Makedonia without a trace.”

Kassandra scoffed. “It won’t matter when I kill them all.”

* * *

“At least take Ikaros with you,” Daphnae insisted, but Kassandra shook her head.

“Ikaros stays here. He’ll watch over you.”

“But who’ll watch over you? You’ll be alone, Kassandra.”

“I’ll be fine, Daphnae.” Kassandra held Daphnae’s face in her hands, momentarily letting herself get lost in her omega’s eyes. She had always loved the color, the dark shade of green. “Nothing will keep me from coming back to you,” she said, and then reached down to touch Chara’s head, their pup clinging to her leg, not wanting her to go. “To both of you,” she promised, stroking Chara’s hair.

Perched on her shoulder, Ikaros nudged her affectionately and chirped. It was best to leave him with Daphnae. Should the Huntsman turn up here instead of the meeting, then she would know at once through Ikaros.

Kassandra picked up Chara, their pup only relinquishing her leg to cling to her neck instead. “Don’t be sad, little bird,” she said, purring for Chara, and eventually, their pup loosened her tight grip, though she continued to pout. “I’m going to stop the man who wants to hurt us, and then we can leave Makedonia. All three of us. We’ll be together, wherever we go.”

Chara blinked, eyes a little watery. She sniffled once. “Can we go to Sparta, Pater? I want to see Uncle Alexios. He was so sad when he left yesterday. I miss him.”

“We’ll go anywhere you want, Chara,” Daphnae said, and Kassandra pulled her omega into the embrace with their pup.

“And your grandmater and grandpater would love to see you,” Kassandra added, and that, finally, brought a smile to their daughter’s face.

“And Uncle Stentor?”

“Yes, even Uncle Stentor.”

Chara giggled, seeing the face she made. Daphnae laughed, and Phratagouné, who had been standing quietly nearby, seemed amused. It was strange to have the huntress watching her without disapproval, but it was something Kassandra was willing to get used to. She had the rest of the Daughters to win over. To have one already on her side was more than welcomed.

“You and Uncle Alexios should be nicer to Uncle Stentor, Pater,” Chara scolded her playfully, but was again reduced to giggles when Kassandra nuzzled her.

“I am the nicest alpha,” she told their pup. “Just ask your mother.”

Daphnae hummed in agreement, smiling at them both. “The sweetest alpha. There is no other I’d rather have.” Her omega kissed her then, soft, loving. “Be safe,” Daphnae told her, gently pressing on the scar on her chest. “Come home.”

Kassandra nodded. She handed Chara over to Daphnae, their pup holding on to her up until the last moment. Ikaros chirped at her and then left her shoulder, going to Daphnae’s. With one last look at her family, Kassandra ascended the stairs and exited the ruins.

Before she got far, she heard a shout of, “Eagle Bearer!” and saw Phratagouné chasing after her. “I’ve just gotten word from my sisters. They’re in Makedonia and will soon be here. If the Huntsman dare show his face, the Daughters of Artemis will rain fire on him. Unlike in Chios, we’ll be expecting him.”

“Your sisters are here?” Kassandra very nearly collapsed in relief. She grasped Phratagouné’s shoulder. “Thank you, Phratagouné. Thank you.” Daphnae would be safe. Chara would be safe.

Phratagouné smiled. “They’re my family, too, Kassandra. Now go. It’s about time we put an end to this,” the huntress told her, and so she did, her mind at ease, much clearer.

* * *

“Mater?”

“Yes, little bird?”

“Do you think Grandmater and Grandpater will like me?”

Ikaros responded first, chirping in affirmation. Daphnae had to agree. She drew Chara in her arms, kissing the top of her daughter’s head. “They’ll love you, Chara, as your pater did when she met you. Your uncle Alexios, as well.”

“I hope so,” Chara said, snuggling up to her.

Darius, sitting at a table with Natakas, stood up and approached them. He looked at Daphnae, and when she nodded, he knelt down. “I, for one, would be thrilled to know I have a grandchild,” he told Chara, who smiled. “In fact, I’m jealous of your grandpater and your grandmater, Chara. To have a grandchild as precious as you is a blessing.”

Daphnae mouthed a thank you at Darius, and the old man smiled at her. Natakas, seeing it, made his way over, and then sat next to his father. Daphnae allowed it, grateful for the distraction.

“You don’t have any grandkids?” Chara asked Darius, who shook his head. “Not even one?”

“Not even one.”

“Why not?” Chara was asking Natakas now. “Is it because you want to have pups with my pater, Natakas? But you can’t. She belongs to my mater. They made up, and they’re going to mates. You should find an alpha of your own.”

Daphnae stroked Chara’s hair, getting her pup’s attention. “Natakas knows, little bird,” she said, sparing him further humiliation. It was strange, defending the very male omega she had felt so threatened by, but there was no doubt now: Kassandra was hers. Kassandra never wasn’t hers.

“The kind of life we have, Chara, it’s not for pups,” Darius spoke up, putting an arm around Natakas, who stared firmly at the ground. “We have to move, always. So even if Natakas finds someone to have a family with, there won’t be a place or time for it.”

Chara frowned. “That’s sad.”

“It is.”

“Is it because of the man who wants to hurt us? Does he want to hurt you, too?”

“Yes, he does.”

“My pater is going to stop him,” Chara declared, amber eyes shining with pride. “When she does, that means you can stop moving so much, right?”

“Right,” Darius agreed, but Daphnae caught it. The old man had hesitated.

* * *

The meeting was to take place at a farm west of Olynthos Fortress. Kassandra chose to wait on a hill that overlooked the farm, where she could lie low until the Huntsman showed himself. A small crowd had already gathered in the fields, all of whom were locals. She wasn’t good with faces like Daphnae, but she was sure those people were from Potidaia.

It didn’t surprise her that the Huntsman had chosen a humble location. It would speak to the people of Makedonia, even to the Spartan soldiers left disgruntled with the partiality Alexios received. Teutamos himself would be in attendance were he not clambering to keep his position as commander of the region.

The scroll, and many like it that found their way around Makedonia, told a grim tale. Cursed bloodlines, it read, false gods - terrifying, powerful, feared by kings - that had come to rule the Greek world and enslave its people. Those who had perished in their hands: a farmer, a doctor, the magistrate, and even Spartan soldiers.

Monsters, it cried. Monsters.

Kassandra crumpled the scroll. It was in different words, but the Order’s aim was similar to the Cult’s: control, fear being a favorite tool.

The crowd had grown a little bigger, Spartan soldiers now among them, but no Persians yet. The Huntsman may not have picked a grand stage like Amphipolis, but she expected him to present himself to the crowd in Persian armor. He did want her to see him, after all. If he intended to show up at all.

Kassandra closed her eyes and reached out to Ikaros. It would take time, given their distance, but she needed to see her family, needed to make sure the Huntsman wasn’t there instead.

She saw Chara first, who had just fed Ikaros a piece of meat. Chara noticed Ikaros’ glowing eyes at once, and then called for Daphnae. Her omega was talking to Darius. Natakas sat next to him, stuck to his father like an unweaned piglet. Phratagouné wasn’t there, likely outside, keeping watch and waiting for the rest of the Daughters.

Daphnae’s beautiful face came into view. Her hair was down, clumsily braided. Chara’s doing? Their pup had been curious about her braid.

Kassandra smiled and then opened her eyes. She would show Chara how, when she got back.

* * *

“Daphnae!” Phratagouné ran into the ruins, eyes wide, in a panic. “Daphnae, our sisters!”

“What?” was all Daphnae managed to say before Phratagouné yanked her to her feet and started dragging her outside. “Phrata, stop! Tell me what’s happened. What’s happened to our sisters?”

“They’re here, Daphnae, in Makedonia, and the Order’s found them! They need our help!” Phratagouné cried out, gripping Daphnae’s shoulders hard. “They’re at the swamps. We must go. Now.”

“Why are they here? Did you bring them here, Phrata? I told you to keep them away!” Daphnae snapped, pushing her huntress away. “I told you!”

“They came for you, Daphnae!” Phratagouné yelled back, and that quieted Daphnae in an instant. “They came for you,” the huntress repeated, voice trembling, “for Chara. Daphnae, please, our sisters need us.”

Daphnae looked back. Chara had followed them, heard their shouting.

“I can’t,” she told her huntress, whimpered the words. “My little girl, Phrata. My baby. I can’t.”

She saw Phratagouné’s heart break then, and imagined the same expression on their sisters. Daphnae turned around, unable to bear watching her huntress run off alone.

When she could no longer hear Phratagouné’s footsteps, Daphnae led Chara back into the ruins, her pup following quietly.

Darius stood by the stairs. He had been listening.

“Go,” he said. “Chara will be safe. You have my word.”

Daphnae hesitated, unsure if it was enough.

* * *

Kassandra had been waiting a while. She wanted to see Daphnae and Chara again, but she couldn’t afford another moment of vulnerability, not when the crowd had spilled past the vast fields, and over a dozen Persians had turned up. They stood guard in front of the farmhouse. Was the Huntsman there all along, she wondered, waiting as she had been?

_Go now,_ her alpha instincts demanded. _Drag the Huntsman out and kill him. Kill them all._

The door to the farmhouse opened. A man, dressed in similar armor as the Persians, stepped outside. Like the other Persians, he wore a mask, but his was different, and that was all the proof Kassandra needed.

The alpha stood, but then she was held back, a hand clasping her shoulder and pulling her back. Snarling, Kassandra whirled around, spear in hand. The blade almost sliced Darius’ throat before she recognized him.

“Eagle Bearer--”

Instead of drawing it away, Kassandra pressed the blade of the spear on Darius’ throat. “You followed me. My family?”

“Safe in the ruins, with the rest of the Daughters of Artemis.”

“We’ll see about that,” she decided. Ikaros would show her.

“Kassandra, please.” That stopped her. Darius was pleading with her, and he called her by her name. “My daughter, my Neema, the Order has her, and the Huntsman may be my only chance to find her. His life is yours to take, but let me talk to him first.”

Kassandra held up her spear a moment longer, looking the old man in the eye, and then she withdrew it. “Why do this?” she asked. “If you had just told me, I could have gotten the information from the Huntsman myself.”

“Because I need to be the one asking him questions, else he would take the answers to his grave.”

Kassandra shook her head, realizing why. “You know him.”

“Pactyas. Yes.” Darius sighed. He looked like a man out of his element, and a desperate one. “I will tell you everything you want to know, Kassandra, the truth, the lies, the secrets. But, for now, I’m asking for your help.”

Kassandra walked to the top of the hill. The Huntsman had his audience captivated with his speech. They clapped. They cheered. They called for the blood of the Tainted Ones.

They were welcome to try.

With a running start, Kassandra leapt from the highest point of the hill, soaring over the farmhouse and the Huntsman himself. Then she dove down, plunging her spear into the earth and splitting it. The thundering force scattered the Persians, flung their bodies every which way.

Kassandra faced the crowd, and she waited. None came forward, not even the Spartan soldiers. She didn’t even have to snarl, didn’t even have to bare her fangs. When she turned her back, still no one dared.

“A god,” came the frightened murmurs. “She is a god!”

The Persians around her writhed. They wouldn’t be getting up. Their legs were broken. She kicked their weapons from their hands, broke those that refused to let go. The Huntsman lay in the middle, no words leaving his mouth, only shallow breaths.

Finally, Darius showed up. Kassandra ripped the mask off the Huntsman’s face.

“Bubares,” Darius murmured, frowning.

“Expecting someone else, Artabanus?”

“Who is this?” Kassandra demanded, growling at them both. “Where is the Huntsman?”

Darius unmasked the other Persians, none of them he called Pactyas. None of them the Huntsman. All of them, in turn, called him Artabanus.

“Where is he?!” Kassandra roared, driving her spear into the imposter’s shoulder, the Persian armor doing nothing to protect him. She twisted the blade, and then again when he finally stopped screaming in agony. “The last Ancient I killed begged for death. What you say to me next will see if you’ll do the same.”

Bubares squirmed. He blubbered. He glance at Darius, and then answered her question with another: “Where is your family, Eagle Bearer? What worth is the word of a man whose name you don’t even know?”

Kassandra looked at Darius. He bowed his head.

She pulled her spear from Bubares’ shoulder, and then cut his gut open.

The crowd gasped. “Monster,” they cried, and she didn’t care. It was just noise.

She sought out Ikaros, but she couldn’t reach him. She tried again, and again, but nothing, she saw nothing.

Then, to Darius, she asked, “What have you done?”

* * *

Daphnae found Phratagouné in the Swamps of Thermes, standing under a dead tree. She hurried to her huntress, almost slipping on the mud. “Phrata, Phrata!” she had to yell, to be heard through the rainfall and thunder.

When did it start raining?

“Phrata, I’m here. I’m here,” she said. She spun Phratagouné around, grasped her huntress’ shoulders. “What are you doing? What happened to the Order? Where are our sisters?”

Phratagouné stared at her for a while, for too long, and then looked up.

The tree, its long, dead branches. The bodies that hung from them.

“No. No...”

Familiar red paint. Familiar faces.

“No, no, no, no, no. No!” Daphnae screamed. At Artemis. At any god who was listening. “Why? Why?!” she howled, and she waited, and waited, but there was only lightning, and thunder, and rain. Only her tears and her broken heart.

“Help me get them down, Phrata,” she begged, but her huntress didn’t move. “Help me!” she cried. “Our sisters--”

“They came. All of them.” Phratagouné covered her face with her hand, muffled a sob. “I loved them, Daphnae. I loved them. You have to know that.”

“I do, Phrata,” Daphnae assured her huntress. “I know.”

Phratagouné clasped her hand. “And I love you, Daphnae. And Chara.” She shook her head, bit back another sob. “But this was the only way. This is the only way. They couldn’t see. Our sisters, they loved you so much. Too much. More than Artemis. They were wrong, and they couldn’t see. It had to be done. It had to be.”

Daphnae stepped back, away from Phratagouné. The huntress held on to her hand. “You did this?”

“For Artemis. For our sisters. But the power you had over them, their loyalty to you, their devotion, I didn’t realize it was so strong. The Order was right.”

“You did this!” Daphnae snarled, wrenching her hand free from Phratagouné’s. She grabbed the huntress by the throat, slamming her into the tree with such force that it shook. “You brought the Order here. You killed our sisters!”

“A great sacrifice so you would see, Daphnae, so you would understand.”

“Understand what?!”

“Of what you and your kind are capable of. Look what you’ve done to the Daughters of Artemis, what that alpha of yours has done to the Greek world. Look what you’re doing now.”

Daphnae saw the bruises forming on Phratagouné’s neck, the blood trickling from where her nails dug in.

“It’s too late for you, Daphnae, for you and your alpha. You both are lost, to your instincts, to your nature. But Chara, she’s young, just a pup. The Order can save her, show her the way. Make her understand, give her a purpose.”

“You will not have her,” Daphnae growled, her grip tightening. She bared her fangs. “I will kill you. I will avenge my sisters.”

Phratagouné closed her eyes, and before she took her last breath, she said, “You are here. Your alpha, elsewhere.”

Daphnae hurried back to the ruins, but she was too late. Chara was gone.

 


	10. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minor character death warning. You won’t care, I promise.
> 
> Also throwing in another reminder about the violence tag.

They looked for days. Followed every trail, even went to Malis. No Order. No Huntsman. No Chara.

Daphnae hadn’t slept, talked and ate less by the day. Kassandra didn’t fare any better, but her alpha instincts compelled her to do more, to take care of her omega. She hunted. She told Daphnae to stop and rest.

Daphnae resisted, sometimes refused. Lately, she pushed. Now, she also yelled.

“No, you fool alpha! No! I don’t want to rest, I don’t want this food, I don’t want this!” The final word came with another push, the desperate strength in it almost throwing Kassandra off her feet. Daphnae closed in, pushed again, but Kassandra caught her hands.

“You will not be rid of me, Daphnae,” she told her omega, pressing the trembling hands to her chest. “Not this time.”

“Chara is gone, Kassandra! Our daughter, our baby girl, she’s gone!” Daphnae snarled, at first, and then withered into whimpers. “And it’s because of me. I brought her here, and Phratagouné, you trusted her because of me. I lost our pup, Kassandra. How can you even look at me?”

Kassandra took Daphnae’s face in her hands, made her omega look at her. Daphnae fought it, shut her eyes. Kassandra had expected it. Daphnae hadn’t been able to look her in the eye since Chara was taken. The amber color, same as their pup’s, was too painful a reminder.

She remained silent. She waited until, finally, Daphnae opened her eyes.

“I miss her. So much.” Daphnae’s hands, still on her chest, clenched. Her voice shook, and Kassandra wiped the tears that fell. “I left her behind, Kassandra. I abandoned her. What if that’s the last thing she’ll remember of her mother?”

Now that she had begun, Daphnae continued to speak, and Kassandra listened, took each word to heart, from Daphnae’s repeated cries for Chara, to the pain of losing her sisters, of Phratagouné’s betrayal.

When Daphnae leaned on her, tired, exhausted, Kassandra wrapped her arms around her omega. Daphnae sought her neck, her scent, and then eventually said, “Let’s head back, for now.”

* * *

Darius was in the ruins when they got back. He looked aged, worn down.

“Why are you here?” Daphnae demanded. It took all of her strength not to kill him where he stood, and by Kassandra’s snarl, she knew her alpha struggled with the same urge.

The old man deserved to die for his lies, but the Order had already done worse to him. Natakas was dead, killed when the Huntsman took Chara. He had been mauled, torn apart by beasts. Lions, Daphnae could tell by the smell. The same white lions at Mount Athos. What little had been left of Natakas, Darius had taken, and they didn’t expect to see the old man again after that.

“I’m here to tell all I know about the Order,” Darius said. He stared at the walls, still stained with Natakas’ dried blood. “I owe you both at least that, for what my actions have led to. Daphnae, Kassandra, will you listen to what I have say?”

Daphnae turned to Kassandra, her alpha already looking at her. She nodded, and then told Darius, “Talk.”

So Darius did. He talked about a brotherhood he had belonged to, they who vowed to keep Persia free from the Order’s grasp. His name was Artabanus then. He believed that Artaxerxes, like his father, would fall in the Order’s hands once he took the throne. Amorges, a good friend, a brother, believed differently.

Amorges joined the Order, foiled his first attempt on Artaxerxes’ life. In doing so, Amorges doomed his family. He lost his wife and all but two of his children. Natakas, he managed to escape with, but Neema, the Order took her.

“She was Chara’s age last I saw her,” he said, his head bowed. “I made a choice: to save one of my children or neither of them. There isn’t a day when I don’t think of Neema, when I don’t dream of the look on her face when she realized I wasn’t going to come for her. I even returned to Persia and accepted a contract on Artaxerxes’ life, hoping to disturb the Order enough to find her.

What I found, instead, was that my brotherhood and the Order were now one and the same, led by Amorges himself. They were stronger under his command, more ruthless and cunning. It was Pactyas, the Huntsman, who saw potential in the Tainted Ones. Utilize those that could be broken and trained. Kill the wild ones.”

“You know he’s a ‘Tainted One’ himself?” Daphnae asked, her question answered by the surprised look on Darius’ face. “He has the power to control beasts. Not tame. Control. Nothing else explains how he seems to see all of Makedonia at once, and how only Natakas fell prey to the lions.” She locked her fingers with her alpha’s as she spoke. Ikaros was alive, she had told Kassandra, but she feared the eagle may be under the Huntsman control, as the white lions were.

Kassandra growled at Darius. “You made us think the Huntsman led the Order, that it would end with him once he’s dead.”

“It was supposed to end. For you. The rest of the Order, and Amorges, they were mine to deal with.”

Kassandra lunged, and Daphnae didn’t stop her alpha. Darius was now flat on his back, on the floor stained with his dead son’s blood.

“Understand this, old man: if the Adrestia returns from Sparta before we get our daughter back, I am going to Persia, and I will burn your homeland until I’ve found Chara, and then I’m going to kill Amorges and every last one of your brothers. I will make it slow, and I will make you watch.”

* * *

Kassandra woke up in the middle of the night to the cry of an eagle.

_Ikaros!_

Daphnae was asleep in her arms, clutching the blanket that smelled less and less like Chara with each passing night. Kassandra let a moment pass, buried her face in Daphnae’s hair and listened to her omega’s steady heartbeats. Then, with a sigh, she nuzzled Daphnae apologetically.

“Daphnae, wake up. Ikaros, he’s here.”

Daphnae’s eyes snapped open, and she sat up in an instant. “You’re sure?”

“Yes,” Kassandra said, letting her omega stand and then following.

“Remember what I told you.”

“I do.”

Together, they gathered their weapons. Kassandra, with Daphnae’s help, slipped into her Spartan armor. Daphnae managed easier, her attire simpler and lighter, but Kassandra assisted regardless.

“Ikaros is alone,” Daphnae told her after sniffing the air, her omega the better tracker between them. “Do you feel him?”

“No.” It was distressing to know Ikaros was nearby but not sense him. “I’ll go first, just in case.”

Daphnae nodded, ready with her bow. Kassandra charged ahead, spear and sword drawn, but it was just as Daphnae said: Ikaros was alone. He was perched on the branch of the nearest tree, twitching, head snapping left and right. His eyes glowed. White, not amber.

“Ikaros!” Kassandra ran to him, Daphnae right behind her.

“He’s in pain, Kassandra.”

Kassandra attempted to hold Ikaros, but he recoiled and nipped at her hands. Daphnae then hushed Ikaros, and though she managed to calm him, it wasn’t for long, and soon he was lashing out again.

“Pactyas, you fucking coward, where are you?!” Kassandra snarled, looking into Ikaros’ glowing eyes.

Daphnae smoothed out Ikaros’ feathers when he began to convulse. “Don’t fight it, Ikaros. Just do what he wants.”

Ikaros flapped his wings in protest and let out a pained cry. Then, with a struggle, he flew away, heading north.

* * *

Ikaros led them to Makedonia’s lake, to the stream east of it. There on a large, sloped rock stood a Persian, but Kassandra didn’t care because she saw Chara, and nothing else mattered then.

“Mater, Pater!”

“Chara!”

Kassandra and Daphnae ran to their pup, but stopped when a lion, one that had the look and size of the Nemean Lion, came up behind Chara. Its eyes, like Ikaros’, glowed white.

The Persian put his hand on Chara’s shoulder. Their pup - thin, weak - whimpered, and then scurried back to his side.

“Don’t you touch her!” Daphnae roared, and Kassandra had to hold her omega back.

The Persian laughed. “I don’t think you’re in a position to be making demands, Daphnae.” It was the Huntsman, there was no doubt now. It was the same smell, the only foreign human scent among the lions in the ruins when Chara had been taken. “You didn’t really think I’d face you alone, did you, Kassandra?”

The Huntsman then lifted his other hand. Kassandra hadn’t noticed, too focused on Chara. A mistake, she realized now, because she could have already killed the Huntsman. He held a large sphere in his hands, its color a familiar, otherworldly gold, and its glow a blinding white.

From around them emerged seven white lionesses, the rest of the pride from Mount Athos. Like the lion with the Huntsman, they were as large as the Nemean Lion and their eyes glowed white. Order soldiers followed the lions, standing behind them. Though they were given a wide berth, it was clear: Kassandra and Daphnae were surrounded.

“A gift from Phratagouné,” the Huntsman said of the sphere. “I’ve learned to do many things with it over the years. You both may recognize it better as eight golden strips, each from a legendary beast. I believe Kassandra left them to you when she gave you the Lykaon Wolf’s pelt, Daphnae. They’re pieces of a whole, see. One piece could turn an ordinary lion into the Nemean Lion. Eight of them together, I can change a whole pride, and they do as I will.”

Ikaros, having landed awkward by the Huntsman feet, attempted to fly but couldn’t. Chara tried to go him, but the Huntsman held her back.

“Your bond with this eagle is a powerful one, Kassandra,” he went on. “No food, no water, but his spirit persisted for days. Even now he fights. If he survives this, I’ll let Chara keep him. It would be her right, after all, to inherit something of her father’s.”

“Then release him!” Kassandra snapped.

“Ikaros has already done what you asked,” Daphnae pointed out. “He brought us here.”

“But that’s not the lesson I want Chara to learn,” the Huntsman said, a twisted smile on his face. “A lesson that her parents will help me teach. Now, your armor, your weapons. On the ground.”

Kassandra and Daphnae growled, but they complied. Two soldiers brought their effects to the Huntsman, who then picked up Kassandra’s spear.

“Even in Persia, I heard tales of the legendary Eagle Bearer. Today, I’ll find out how much of that power is in this spear, and how much of it, rather, how little of it, is you.” He grasped the spear, and while it didn’t respond to him, it didn’t deter him.

Kassandra bared her fangs at the Huntsman. “Come down here and find out.”

“While I am Tainted like you, I know my place in the world. I’ve found my purpose. I maintain balance, keep order.” The Huntsman sneered then, looking disgusted with them both. “You leave chaos in your wake. Kings and kingdoms rise and fall at your whim. You challenge your own gods, make your own laws.” He sighed. “Phratagouné had such high hopes for you, Daphnae. She believed, with all her heart, that your faith would tame you, as it had your mother.”

“Chara deserves her father!” Daphnae shouted, screamed so even the gods would hear. “I deserve my mate! We are a family, and I won’t let people like you and Phratagouné keep us apart. Not anymore.”

The Huntsman shook his head, like a father disappointed in his child. The sphere in his hand released a bright flash, and the massive lionesses began to stalk towards them. “The beasts of legend are unnatural, not of this world. Too wild, too dangerous. Impossible to control. Until now.”

He stepped away from Chara, and the lion behind her pounced.

“No!”

“Chara!”

Beneath the lion, Chara had curled up into a ball, unharmed. Kassandra and Daphnae looked on, wide-eyed and breathing raggedly. Slowly, the lion stepped back and sat down.

“Kassandra, Daphnae, you will die today, and your daughter will see that you are no gods. You are mortal, and you will bleed.”

The massive lions prowled near. Kassandra stood in front of Daphnae, letting out a loud, fierce roar to get the beasts’ attention. It was so forceful that it made the lions pause.

“Can you get through to them?” she asked Daphnae.

“No. Not while he has that artifact.”

“Then there’s no other way.”

“Whatever it takes, Kassandra.”

Another bright flash from the sphere, and then the lions came at them.

There was no way to avoid them all. The lions were strong, a single one stronger than the Nemean Lion. Their claws cut through bone, their bites broke it.

Kassandra caught one lion mid-jump, launching it across the glade with a kick. It should have died, its heart stopped, but it sprang right back up, didn’t even limp. At once, another lion lunged at her, its large maw clamping down on her shoulder. Daphnae pulled the beast off quick. She should have broken its neck, but she couldn’t even break its skin.

“Do you see now?” came the Huntsman taunting voice, heard through Chara’s cries of _pater_. The lions ceased, waited while he talked. “Do you understand?”

They did, but not in the way he wanted. Kassandra saw it, and by the knowing look Daphnae gave her, so did she. They both saw it, how the white glow spread to the rest of the lions’ bodies, how it made the beasts invincible. How it was gone, soon as the beasts were out of danger. It wasn’t limitless, the Huntsman power, and they could run it out.

They just had to outlast it.

Her shoulder knitted back together, Kassandra stood up. She scowled, held her chin high. Beside her, Daphnae snarled at the Huntsman.

The Huntsman frowned, displeased with their pride, their arrogance.

“That won’t do,” he said, and the sphere flashed bright.

* * *

Daphnae blinked fast. There was blood in her eyes. Her eyes were bleeding, had almost been scratched out. Her leg was broken, and the gash on her back so deep it exposed her spine.

She heard Kassandra growl nearby, her alpha defending her from the lions while she healed. It hurt now, her body putting itself back together so quickly, and after so many times.

When her sight came back, the first thing Daphnae saw was a lion, more red with their blood than it was white. Kassandra threw herself at the beast, beating it with thundering punch after punch, but it did nothing. The lion kicked Kassandra off, and Daphnae heard her alpha’s ribs crack.

Then, the lions stopped. It happened more often now. The Huntsman filled the lapses with words. He wanted them broken. He wanted Chara to see it, that her parents stopped fighting, that her parents gave up.

They would die first.

Daphnae held Kassandra together as best she could while her alpha’s body hurried to catch up. The lions, following the most recent flash from the sphere, behaved differently, more like themselves. They chased her, but then Kassandra roared, challenged them, and the lions swarmed her, almost tore her apart.

Then the same thing happened, flash after flash after flash.

“Stop,” Daphnae begged her alpha. She could feel how weak Kassandra’s heart was. It took too long now, for the bones to mend, for the muscles and skin to knit back. Soon, Kassandra would have no more blood to lose.

In those amber eyes, all Daphnae could see was an alpha staring back at her. Kassandra didn’t understand what she was asking, only that she had to be protected, no matter the cost.

_Oh. You fool alpha._

* * *

Chara waited for her father to stand back up after the lions knocked her down. But she didn’t. Not this time.

The cry her mother let out was loud, and full of pain. Made it hard to breathe. Made Chara cry even more.

Then it made her move. The lions were coming back, and her mother wasn’t moving, just held on to her father. Chara wasn’t afraid, not anymore. She just needed to be with her father and mother, to do something, anything.

The man grabbed her arm, twisted it, and then pulled her back before the lion behind her hurt her.

“You won’t be joining your parents, Chara. You belong to the Order now.”

“No,” she said, quietly at first. Then louder. “No. No!” she snarled, and she fought him, tried to get out of his grip. He was strong, but she had to be stronger. She had to be.

When he still wouldn’t let her go, Chara did the first thing she could think of. She bit his hand.

He screamed, and then he hit her. He was going to do it again when, suddenly, Ikaros appeared and knocked the shiny sphere out of his hand.

She had to get it. She had to get it before the man did. She knew what it did, what it could do.

It rolled next to the lion, whose eyes didn’t glow anymore. Like Ikaros, it was okay now, back to normal, and like any normal lion, it didn’t want to hurt her. Chara crawled to the lion, kicked the man’s hands off her feet when he grabbed her. The lion pounced on him, and she grabbed the sphere.

It glowed bright in her hand, brighter than it ever did when the man held it.

Chara felt the lions, and she could talk to them. “Please stop hurting my mater and pater,” she whispered to the sphere, knowing, somehow, that the lions would hear her.

They did. The lions left her parents alone. But they weren’t moving, not even mother.

Chara gripped the sphere. Her hands shook. She looked at the man. He was trapped under the lion. It was big again, its paw on the man’s chest.

He didn’t look scared, but she knew he was. She could smell it. But Chara, when she looked at the man, all she felt was anger. Hate. Rage.

“You hurt my pater! My mater!” she screamed at him. “My friends, my aunties. My family! You hurt them all!”

The lion began to hurt the man, scratched him, bit him. Chara didn’t tell it to stop. He deserved it. He deserved it.

She ran to her parents. The other men weren’t there to stop her. The lions had come after them.

Her parents still weren’t moving.

“Mater?” Pater?”

She shook them, gently, because they were hurt all over, had bled all over. She pressed her ear to her mother’s back, and then to her father’s chest. She could it hear it, their hearts beating, but so quiet, so slow.

“Please get up.” She shook them again. “I’m sorry I was so scared. I’m sorry you got hurt so much because of me. I’m sorry I wasn’t brave like you. Pater, Mater, please get up. Please open your eyes.”

But they didn’t.

“Ikaros, Ikaros, get help! Get help!” she said, and when Ikaros flew away, she began to shout, “Help! Help! Someone please help me! My mater, my pater. They’re hurt, they need help!”

Chara kept shouting until her throat hurt, until she lost her voice, but nobody came, and Ikaros still wasn’t back.

Not knowing what else to do, Chara curled up between her father and mother and cried.

* * *

Kassandra woke up. She was at an inn. Amphipolis? It looked too fancy to be Potidaia. She turned to her side, following Daphnae’s scent, but her omega wasn’t there. Then, she caught another scent.

_Mater?_

She turned to her other side, and there was her mother, asleep by her bedside. “Mater?” she tried to say, but it came out a croak. How long had she been sleeping?

It came to her, then. The Huntsman. The glowing sphere. The lions. Daphnae. Chara.

Kassandra sat up, tried to do it fast, but her body was slow to follow. It woke her mother, who immediately pulled her into an embrace.

“Oh, Kassandra, my lamb, my baby,” her mother sobbed happily, and then began to pepper her face with kisses. “I knew you would wake up. I just knew it. Everything’s fine. Everything’s fine, Kassandra, don’t you worry. Daphnae, Chara, they’re fine.”

Kassandra tried to talk again, but it was just another croak.

“Oh! You must be parched. Here, lamb, drink.” Her mother brought a cup of water to her lips.

Kassandra drank it all, greedily, so much that her mother had to tell her to slow down. After two more cups, her throat felt much better. “Mater, what are you doing here?” she asked her mother, who now sat next to her, stroking her hair.

“Alexios told us everything, Kassandra. The Order. Chios. Daphnae. Chara.” The pup’s name had Myrrine smiling. “How could I not come here, knowing I have a granddaughter? She’s a wonderful little girl, lamb. And Daphnae, seems you two had talked things through since Alexios last saw you?”

Kassandra nodded, much too eagerly, but she couldn’t contain the thrill she felt at her mother’s approving tone of Daphnae. “Where is Chara?” she asked, and she had to smile when she saw how her mother’s eyes lit up.

“With your brother. Seems he wants her all to himself. Even I hardly get to spend time with her. Me, her grandmater!”

Kassandra chuckled. “I know the feeling, Mater, trust me.” She then glanced at the empty spot on the bed. “And Daphnae? Is she all right?”

“Yes. She woke up a couple of days earlier than you did. Unfortunate she’s not here right now, but she had to see to her sisters, give them a proper burial. So much time has already passed. She’s in Malis, with that man Darius.”

“How long have I been sleeping?”

“A week.”

“A week?” Kassandra repeated in disbelief. It certainly explained why her mother looked like she hadn’t gotten any sleep. “And Darius? You know him?”

“He was the one who found you and Daphnae by the lake. You were halfway through the Styx, both of you.” Myrrine rubbed her back as she talked, and Kassandra purred at the maternal attention. “We had just docked when Ikaros found us. Darius had dragged you two past the fort by the time we came upon you. A moment later and you and Daphnae would be with Hades now.” Her mother frowned, hand brushing over new, large scars on her back.

“The last thing I remember was drawing the lions away from Daphnae.” Kassandra cradled her head. She felt a little dizzy. “The Huntsman had this artifact, Mater. He used it to control lions, a whole pride of them, and he even managed to change their bodies, made them bigger, stronger.”

Myrrine continued to rub her back. “Daphnae told me. The artifact is with us. I had it stored in the Adrestia, to be safe. If it can’t be destroyed, then maybe you could leave it inside that vault in Andros?”

“I’ll talk to Daphnae about it. Did Darius kill the Huntsman?”

“No. From what he could tell, it seems the lions turned on the Huntsman and his soldiers. We’ve asked Chara, but she doesn’t remember what happened. I think it’s for the best.” Myrrine’s hand paused then, trembled a bit. “Darius told me he found her nestled between you and Daphnae, drenched in your blood.”

“Where is Chara, Mater? I want to see her.”

Before Kassandra could stand, the door swung open. “See, what did I say?” Alexios’ booming voice rang, and then his smiling face appeared. It was obvious he had been listening, waiting for the right time to make an entrance. He stepped inside, holding Chara in his arms. “I told you, pup, today would be the day your lazy pater finally woke up!”

“Pater!” Chara squealed, just about flying from Alexios’ arms to hers.

Kassandra caught her pup, and when Chara clung to her, she was suddenly overcome by emotion. She held Chara close, buried her nose in her pup’s hair. She had been close to losing this, having her daughter in her arms, feeling her purr, making her happy. “My little girl,” she murmured, sobbed out the words. “My beautiful little girl.”

“I’m so glad you’re okay, Pater.” Chara sniffled. Her pup was crying. For once, out of joy.

* * *

That was the last grave. Daphnae had her paid her respects, said her goodbyes. It hadn’t been easy. Nature had begun to claim her sisters when she returned to them in the swamp, but Daphnae wouldn’t have it. She had to bring them home.

“Regrets?”

Daphnae sighed. She hated how quiet it was in Lamia now, how empty. “Plenty,” she answered the question, looked at Darius, and then shook her head. “Too many.”

“A feeling I know far too well,” he said.

“Is that why you’re here,” she asked, “why you helped us in the glade?”

“I gambled your daughter’s life in search for mine. For that, I lost my son.” He stopped talking a moment, swallowed a lump in his throat. “I couldn’t let the Order break your family like it did mine, not if there was something I could do about it. I was at Natakas’ grave when I saw that blinding flash. Then I saw Ikaros, and I knew it had to be you and your family.”

Daphnae had heard talk of it, the blinding flash from the lake. The glow from the sphere had been bright, but nothing like what Darius and all of Makedonia described. It was Helios himself, as went the story.

Did the Huntsman get so desperate that he used up all of the sphere’s power at once? It would explain why the lions turned on him.

“Is he dead, then? The Huntsman?”

“No. He’s badly wounded, of that, I’m certain, but he wasn’t among the dead. I know he’s still in Makedonia. I’ll find him. The Order is mine to deal with from here on. This promise, I will keep.”

“Your daughter,” Daphnae said, not letting Darius leave just yet. “Neema. I hope you find her.”

Darius nodded. “Thank you. And if you would listen to an old man?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t spend your life looking back, Daphnae. Live it. Be with your family. Be happy.”

* * *

Daphnae was heading back when she heard an eagle’s cry.

_Ikaros?_

She saw him, and then followed him. He brought her to the bay in Pandora’s Cove. There, sitting on the small dock, were Kassandra and Chara, trying to fish with makeshift fishing poles.

“--and the shark was so scared it sprang out of the water and landed on the Adrestia, right on Herodotus’ lap! The way he squirmed and squealed, you’d think he was the fish!”

“You’re not that scary, Pater. You’re not scary at all!”

“Oh? Brave words from a brave pup. A sweet little pup. A ticklish little pup.”

“I am not ticklish!”

When Chara started giggling, Daphnae couldn’t stay still anymore. She ran to her alpha and her pup, throwing her arms around them both.

“Mater!”

“Daphnae.” Kassandra’s greeting was calmer, but her smile, the light in her eyes, it took Daphnae’s breath away.

Then she was kissing Kassandra, her lips, her face, her neck. “You’re awake,” she would say over and over between kisses. “You’re here,” she said at last when she made her way back to Kassandra’s lips, and with it, a long, proper kiss that drew out a delightfully alpha growl.

Daphnae responded with another kiss, shorter this time, but with a clear promise of _later_.

“I’m here, too, Mater!” Chara declared.

“Yes, you are, little bird,” Daphnae cooed, nuzzling their pup.

She sat with them, Kassandra on her left, Chara on her right.

“I hope it’s okay,” Kassandra said, glancing at the empty village behind them. “We couldn’t wait to see you. We were just going to stay by the road, but Chara wanted to go fishing.”

Daphnae touched Kassandra’s arm and leaned on her. “It’s okay.” She slid her hand higher then, locking her fingers with her alpha’s. Chara snuggled up to her side, and Daphnae put her arm around their pup. “It is a nice day to go fishing, isn’t it?”

* * *

Inside a hidden cave not far from Makedonia’s lake, the Huntsman tended to his wounds. It was difficult with just one good arm, and he had so many injuries, but he persisted.

Then came footsteps. A soldier of the Order. Finally.

“I lost the artifact,” he readily confessed. There was no reaction that he could see, not from behind the mask the soldier wore. “The Eagle Bearer, the huntress, they’re more powerful than we ever imagined. Their child did this to me. A child!”

Still, there was no reaction from the soldier, but the Huntsman went on.

“The Order must march to Greece. Amorges would agree with me. He would see this chaos stopped before it further spreads, and it will spread. They are Tainted Ones, alpha and omega as well. They are depraved creatures. It’s only a matter of time.”

The soldier exhaled, and then kneeled in front of the Huntsman. He noticed the blade mounted on the soldier’s left arm, and his eyes went wide.

“Neema? Amorges sent you? Why?”

The mask came off, along with a simple message: “Amorges is dead.”

“What?”

Neema clenched her fist, and the blade sprang from its sheath. “Phila and I have decided that it’s time for a new order.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s done. IT’S DONE. Holy shit. I hate and love this thing so much. It reminded me why I stopped writing fics but also why I love to do it.
> 
> I want to thank everyone who’s ever left kudos, written a comment, bookmarked this fic. Everyone. I especially want to thank the people who made the time and effort to comment, and my love goes out to who went the extra mile. Please believe me when I say that I wouldn’t have finished this without you. I wanted to give up so many times, but I see that this is enjoyed, maybe even loved, so I kept going.
> 
> Special thank you to my best friend, who helped me figure out the last two chapters. Thank you for putting up with my crap.
> 
> I’ve attached the fic to a series, which I still plan to do. I’m not going to overhaul Episode 2 like I did with Episode 1. It’s just too much work to make the Order compelling. It’s also why I made Neema and Phila take over. Also, yeah, Neema has her own hidden blade because you’re not special, Darius.
> 
> Something significant that I couldn't work in: Kassandra hasn’t met her real father yet. She doesn’t even know/thinks Nikolaos is her real dad. I did that because I’m probably going to change who that is, and because I don’t want her to know about Atlantis just yet since that quest and the upcoming Atlantis DLC obviously go together. It makes more sense to have it happen last.
> 
> But for now, I’m going to take a break. I need to turn my brain off after this.


End file.
